Sean Hill (scientist)

Sean Hill
Born Sean Lewis Hill
USA
Residence Lausanne, Switzerland
Nationality USA, Switzerland
Institutions EPFL
Alma mater Hampshire College, University of Lausanne
Known for Large-scale computer models of brain circuits, Simulations of different brain states (wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia, etc), Neuroinformatics

Sean Lewis Hill is an American-Swiss neuroscientist and professor at the Blue Brain Project of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne located on the Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland.[1] He is known for the development of large-scale computational models of brain circuitry and neuroinformatics. [2][3]

Early life and education

Hill was born in New Jersey, raised in Warren, Maine and attended Camden-Rockport High School. He graduated from Hampshire College with a degree in Computational Neuroscience and obtained his PhD from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Career

After working with Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi during his postdoctoral work in San Diego and Wisconsin, Hill joined the Computational Biology group at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. There he served as Project Manager for Computational Neuroscience on the Blue Brain Project from 2006-2008.[4] He subsequently joined the EPFL Blue Brain team. Hill served as the Executive Director of the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility from 2011-2013 and as its Scientific Director from 2013-2016. He developed the core design of the neuroinformatics infrastructure of the EU Human Brain Project, led its development during its start-up phase,[5] and in 2014 was co-director of the project.[6]

In 2016, Hill is co-Director of Blue Brain, a Swiss brain initiative, and the Director of the Laboratory for the Neural Basis of Brain States. He leads the Neuroinformatics Division of Blue Brain and coordinates many of its collaborations.[7]

Hill has developed a number of large-scale brain models and simulations, including the first large-scale model of the visual thalamocortical system of the cat which accurately replicates multi-scale electrophysiological phenomena during wakefulness and sleep. He has also co-led the Blue Brain's efforts to create digital reconstructions of neocortical microcircuitry.

He serves on the advisory or management boards of several clinical and neuroinformatics initiatives including the Ontario Brain Institute and a large-scale traumatic brain injury study, CENTER-TBI.

Hill is author of more than 80 peer reviewed publications[8] and has given talks around the world on the topics of neuroinformatics, brain modeling and simulation, and on the cellular and synaptic mechanisms of conscious and unconscious brain states.[1][9]

An advocate of global collaboration on data sharing in brain research, Hill has actively worked with brain projects around the world to identify potential areas of collaboration and interaction. He has been quoted as saying "It takes the world to understand the brain." [10]

Hill has appeared in many documentaries about the brain, including on ARTE[11] and the PBS documentary The Brain with David Eagleman, and has been interviewed in print and on radio and television programs including CNN,[3] and Bloomberg.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 "Scientists Trying To Replicate The Human Brain". Sky News, 20 June 2014
  2. 1 2 " Can Europe Map the Human Brain?". Bloomberg, By Sam Chambers 2014-06-27
  3. 1 2 "Scientists to simulate human brain inside a supercomputer". CNN, By Barry Neild, October 12, 2012
  4. ↑ [This Digital Sliver of Rat Brain Took Researchers 20 Years to Reconstruct"]. Motherboard, Written by Emiko Jozuka October 8, 2015
  5. ↑ "The Incredible Challenge of Digitizing the Human Brain". Motherboard, by Victoria Turk, June 18, 2014
  6. ↑ "Brain-Mapping Projects to Join Forces". Scientific American, By Sara Reardon, Nature magazine on March 19, 2014
  7. ↑ "Whole Human Brain Mapped in 3-D". Scientific American, By Helen Shen, Nature magazine on June 21, 2013
  8. ↑ Google Scholar report for Sean Hill.
  9. ↑ "The Human Brain Project". I, Science, June 27, 2014 by Fatema Kassamali
  10. ↑ "It Takes the World to Map the Brain | The Kavli Foundation". www.kavlifoundation.org. Retrieved 2017-02-27.
  11. ↑ ARTE Square http://future.arte.tv/fr/square-la-guerre-du-cerveau retrieved on 7 November, 2016
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