Philip Rubin

Philip E. Rubin
Born	1949 Newark, New Jersey
Residence	Fairfield, Connecticut
Nationality	USA
Fields	Psychology, Linguistics
Institutions	Office of Science and Technology Policy, National Science Foundation, Haskins Laboratories, Yale University
Alma mater	Brandeis University University of Connecticut
Doctoral advisor	Michael Turvey, Alvin Liberman, and Philip Lieberman
Known for	Articulatory synthesis Embodied cognition Human subjects and public policy Sinewave synthesis

Philip E. Rubin (born May 22, 1949, in Newark, New Jersey) is an American cognitive scientist, technologist, and science administrator. He is currently the Principal Assistant Director for Science at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President of the United States,^[1] and leads the White House's neuroscience initiative.^[2] He is also serving as the Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at OSTP.^[3] From 2003 through 2011 he was the Chief Executive Officer and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, where he is currently on leave.^[4] During this period he was also a Professor Adjunct in the Department of Surgery, Otolaryngology at the Yale University School of Medicine and a Research Affiliate in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. For many years he has been involved with issues of science advocacy, education, funding, and policy.

Education

Philip Rubin received his BA in psychology and linguistics in 1971 from Brandeis University and subsequently attended the University of Connecticut where he received his PhD is experimental psychology in 1975 under the tutelage of Michael Turvey, Ignatius Mattingly, Philip Lieberman, and Alvin Liberman.

Career

Philip Rubin's research spans a number of disciplines, combining computational, engineering, linguistic, physiological and psychological approaches to study embodied cognition, most particularly the biological bases of speech and language. He is best known for his work on articulatory synthesis (computational modeling of the physiology and acoustics of speech production), speech perception, sinewave synthesis, signal processing, perceptual organization, and theoretical approaches and modeling of complex temporal events, and continues active research collaborations with colleagues at Haskins, Yale, and other institutions.

During his time at Haskins Laboratories, Rubin was responsible for the design of many software systems. Most prominent are SWS,^[5] the Haskins sinewave synthesis program and ASY,^[6] the Haskins articulatory synthesis program. SWS has been used by Robert Remez, Rubin, David B. Pisoni,^[7] and other colleagues and researchers to study the time-varying characteristics of the speech signal. In addition to use in standard articulatory synthesis, the ASY program has been used as part of a gestural-computational model ^[8] that combines articulatory phonology, task dynamics,^[9] and articulatory synthesis. With Louis Goldstein and Mark Tiede,^[10] Rubin designed a radical revision of the articulatory synthesis model, known as CASY,^[11] the configurable articulatory synthesizer. This 3-dimensional model of the vocal tract permits researchers to replicate MRI images of actual speakers and has been used to study the relation between speech production and perception. He is also the designer of the HADES signal processing system and the SPIEL programming language.

He is co-creator, with Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson,^[12] of the Talking Heads website^[13] and a co-founder, with Elliot Saltzman, of the IS Group.^[14]

Rubin was the founder, in 1984, and first president of YMUG (now known as YaleMUG, the Yale Macintosh Users Group)^[15] and the publisher of The Desktop Journal. Other co-founders and early members include Tony Cecala,^[16] Eric Celeste,^[17] Richard Crane,^[18] David Pogue, Michael D. Rabin,^[19] Tom Rielly,^[20] Elliot Schlessel, and Ed Seidel.

From 2000-2003 Rubin was the Director of the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS)^[21] at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, Virginia, where he helped launch the Cognitive Neuroscience,^[22] Human Origins (HOMINID),^[23] and other programs and was the first chair of the Human and Social Dynamics priority area.^[24] While at the NSF he was the NSF ex officio representative to the National Human Research Protection Advisory Committee (NHRPAC)^[25] and the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP),^[26] established to provide advice to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on issues related to the protection of human research subjects. He was also the co-chair of the inter-agency National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on Science (COS) Human Subjects Research Subcommittee (HSRS) under the auspices of the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and was also formerly the co-chair of the HSRS Behavioral Research Working Group. After leaving the NSF in 2003, he continued to be active on human subjects issues as they relate to public policy, including lecturing, writing, co-authoring an AAUP report,^[27] participating in activities of the Yale Bioethics Center,^[28] and serving on the advisory board of the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics.^[29]

Rubin has been in several leadership roles related to science policy and advocacy. From 2006-2011 he was the Chair of the National Academies Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences;^[30] the Chair of the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Field Evaluation of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences-Based Methods and Tools for Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence;^[31] a member of the NRC Committee on Developing Metrics for Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Research;^[32] a member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences;^[33] and the co-leader ot the Yale-Haskins Teagle Foundation Collegium on Student Learning.^[34] He is also the former Chairman of the Board of the Discovery Museum and Planetarium in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

OSTP

In February 2012 Philip Rubin took a position as the Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President of the United States.^[35] He is also serving as a Senior Advisor at the National Science Foundation in the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate.^[36] At OSTP he is leading the White House's neuroscience initiative.^[37] On April 16, 2012, Congressman Chakah Fattah (D-PA) introduced House Resolution 613, supporting the OSTP interagency working group on neuroscience that Rubin is organizing. The resolution also "... commends President Barack Obama for the expeditious appointment of Dr. Philip Rubin to lead the working group's efforts."^[38] In June 2012 was named by John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of OSTP, to be OSTP's Principal Assistant Director for Science, taking over the duties of Nobel laureate Carl Wieman, who resigned as Associate Director for Science on June 2.^[39] In this new role Rubin has also become Co-Chair of the National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Science, serving with other Co-Chairs, Francis Collins and Subra Suresh, Directors of the NIH and NSF, respectively.^[40]

Honors

Philip Rubin is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Acoustical Society of America, the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science, and an elected member of the Psychonomic Society and Sigma Xi. In 2010 he received the APA’s Meritorious Research Service Commendation "... for his outstanding contributions to psychological science through his service as a leader in research management and policy development at the national level".^[41]

Personal Life

Philip Rubin was born on May 22, 1949, in Newark, New Jersey. He spent most of his childhood in Newark and went to Union High School in Union, New Jersey. In the 1960s he was a guitar player in the seminal New Jersey garage band, "The Institution." Rubin is a photographer who, since the 1970s, has concentrated on pictures of wall art, including murals, graffiti, and painted buildings, in the urban centers of the cities that he has visited. Speaking of the transient nature of wall art, he has said, "The artist is often unknown; the passing of time and the public venues invite unanticipated collaboration.”^[42] His work has been exhibited and sold at numerous venues.^{[43] [44] [45]} He is married to Joette Katz, retired Associate Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court and currently the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.^[46] They have two children, Dr. Jason Rubin, a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital and the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle,^[47][48] and Samantha Katz,^[49] Art Director for Makovsky + Company in New York.^[50]

References

Selected publications

External links

• Office of Science and Technology Policy
• National Science Foundation
• Haskins profile
• Haskins Laboratories
• Articulatory Synthesis
• SineWave Synthesis
• Yale University School of Medicine
• NSF Reflections. APS Observer, V. 17, #4
• Discovery Museum & Planetarium
• National Academies Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences