Dr. Nancy Kopell
Boston University, Boston MA
Curator and author
Featured Author: Nancy Kopell
Nancy Kopell (b. November 8, 1942 in New York City, USA) received an AB in 1963 from Cornell and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1967 (thesis “Commuting Diffeomorphisms” under Stephen Smale). After two years at MIT she joined the faculty at Northeastern University, becoming a full professor in 1978. In 1986 she became Professor of Mathematics at Boston University, where she is now co-director of the Center for BioDynamics and holds the inaugural title of William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Mathematics and Science.
Dr. Kopell has held Sloan, Guggenheim, and MacArthur ('genius grant', 1990) fellowships, and in 2000 was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. Among her many invited speaking engagements, in 1990 she was plenary speaker at two meetings of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. She has given the University Lecture at Boston University, the Volmer Fries Memorial Lecture, and the Mark Kac Memorial Lecture.
Dr. Kopell is among the first biomathematicians, and has recently (and successfully) been using mathematics to determine which low level cell features give rise to the emergent behavior of the networks in which they reside, with a particular interest in dynamic, oscillatory activity.
Scholarpedia articles:
- Fast threshold modulation (with E. de Lange)
- Models of midbrain dopaminergic neurons (with A.S. Kuznetsov, L.L. Rubchinsky, and C Wilson)
(Author profile by Leo Trottier)
