Applying For Graduate School: A Personal Statement

Personal Statement

After I graduate from Oregon State I plan to attend graduate school in a computational neuroscience program with the end goal of becoming a professional researcher. The field I am most interested in is neural modeling: using mathematical models of neurons/neural systems to understand and simulate higher-level functions of the brain, such as vision or motor control. I think it would be especially interesting to use methods like this to describe even higher brain functions, like cognition. I am also interested in using bioinformatics and computational biology to study how the brain grows and how neural systems develop. I plan on applying to Pittsburgh CNBC, Boston University and NYU, since all these schools do work I find interesting.

At Pitt I would be immersed in a huge neuroscience environment, which would give me great perspective on the field. I have never seen so many professors working in a single field as the CNUP Training Faculty list. Pitt particularly draws me in because of its large amount of computational and theoretical neuroscience research. I also plan on applying to University of Pittsburgh’s neuroscience program for graduate school, so it would be great to learn more about the school in my undergraduate

When I looked at the list of Training Faculty I was particularly interested in the work of 3 researchers. Brent Doiron, a mathematics professor, uses neural system models to predict the behavior of the brain. I would like to see how these models take into account things like connectivity and neurotransmitter levels, as well as if they can be scaled up to arbitrary sizes or if they are tuned to particular neural systems. I also think it would be interesting to work with a mathematics professor on a biology project. Jonathan Rubin is another professor who does neural modeling by coming up with differential equations to describe particular neural systems. I would like to know more about how particular systems are chosen to be simulated and what assumptions go into them. I think it would be fun to apply my numerical simulation training to a problem in biology. Last but not least, Tai Sing Lee does some fascinating research in modeling the vision system. I’ve always been interested in how progressively higher-ordered parts of the vision system (V1, V2, …) work to create vision. Using computational techniques to represent these systems seems like a perfect way to gain more understanding about this part of the brain, which is why I would love to work in Dr Lee’s