Joseph Monaco, a research associate in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, is a computational neuroscientist who uses theory, modeling, and analysis to address questions of biological function and mechanism arising from a dynamical perspective of neural circuits and behavior. His research has focused on spatial cognition and memory in mammals, including the cells, circuits, neural codes, and dynamics of the hippocampus and related structures. His research is currently focused on models of memory reactivation during waking and sleeping states to help understand the neural dynamics that are crucial to life-long learning and behavioral adaptation. In collaboration with the JHU Applied Physics Laboratory, he has been developing potential technological applications for these neural dynamics in self-organized control of artificial autonomous systems.
He received BAs in Cognitive Science and Mathematics in 2003 at the University of Virginia and a PhD in Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University in 2009.