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Javier Orlandi

PhD

Positions

CRC Tier II Complex Neural System Modelling

Faculty of Science, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Full Member

Hotchkiss Brain Institute

Contact information

Web presence

Phone number

office: 403.210.6548

Location

Office: Science B505

Background

Educational Background

PhD Physics, University of Barcelona, 2015

MSc Biophysics, University of Barcelona, 2009

BSc Physics, University of Barcelona, 2008

Biography

I obtained my Ph.D. in 2015 at the Physics Faculty in the University of Barcelona under the supervision of Dr. Jaume Casademunt. The main focus was on trying to understand the emergence of spontaneous activity in neuronal cultures. Afterwards, I began a short postdoc at the University of Barcelona under the supervision of Dr. Jordi Soriano and Dr. Jordi Alberch to study the effective connectivity of neuronal networks in Huntington’s disease. In August of 2016 I joined the group of Dr. Jörn Davidsen at the University of Calgary to continue my research in the physics of neuronal systems. From 2019 to 2022 I worked at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Japan as a Human Frontiers Fellow in Dr. Andrea Benucci’s lab, studying the neuronal underpinning of large-scale cortical processing during decision-making.

Since July 2022 I am an Assistant Professor in the Physics and Astronomy department and full member of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute. Current research focuses in revealing the underlying principles of distributed coding in the brain and their impact in perception and learning. Our research is done in close collaboration with experimental partners at the HBI and in the Computational Neuroscience Platform and belongs to key HBI priority areas, including Neurodevelopment,  Dementia & Cognitive Disorders and  Movement Disorders.

 

Research

Areas of Research

Computational and Systems Neuroscience, Network neuroscience, Complexity Science

Participation in university strategic initiatives

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
PHYS 451 Statistical Mechanics II Winter 2023

Projects

Revealing the neural underpinning of learning and decision-making with recurrent neural networks

Causal inference through control theory and patterned stimulation during behavior

Principles of distributed coding during decision-making

Context-based and transfer learning

NETCAL: interactive platform for analysis of large-scale calcium imaging recordings

Awards

  • HFSP Long-Term Fellowship, Human Frontier Science Program. 2019

Publications