Christoph von der Malsburg (born 8 May 1942) is a German physicist and neuroscientist.
Christoph von der Malsburg | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | German |
Alma mater | University of Heidelberg |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Neuroscientist |
Institutions | University of Southern California |
Thesis | Bestimmung der π−-Masse (1970) |
Doctoral students | Ladan Shams |
von der Malsburg obtained his PhD with a concentration in elementary particle physics at CERN and the University of Heidelberg in 1970.
He joined the neurobiology department of the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. He remained there until 1987, when he became a professor of Computer Science, Neuroscience, Physics and Psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.[1] In 1990, he founded the Institut für Neuroinformatik (Institute for Neural Computation) at Ruhr-University Bochum, together with Werner von Seelen. He commuted between the two institutions until 2007, when he joined the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies as a Senior Fellow.[2]
Von der Malsburg co-founded two companies and received a number of awards. He is a member of the scientific advisory board of the Human Brain Project[3] and one of the members of the founding board of Mindfire Foundation, of which he also heads the neuroscience board.[4]
His research interests focused on processes of organization in the brain with emphasis on the structure and function of the visual system. His publications concerning the theory of self-organization of regular fiber projections in the visual system made him a pioneer of this field. He is known for his criticism of the theory of neural networks.[5] He claimed that the generally accepted view fails because of the binding problem. To solve it he formulated the Dynamic Link Architecture, a system of rapidly switching network fragments, as applied to facial recognition.[6][7]