I was a Research Associate in the Inference Group at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. A physicist by training, my primary research interests include biologically-plausible neural networks, brain-computer interfaces, and the "digital divide".
I am interested in how computation and related tasks (memory, pattern recognition, etc) can be carried out by networks of neurons that communicate by sending each other spikes (electrical pulses). Most recently my work has focused on distributed phase codes, in which memories and mental states are represented by the phase of firing (relative to some overall cycle) of a whole population of neurons.
Read more about this work in my PhD thesis, "Computation with Spiking Neurons" (PDF | .ps.gz) (October 2004).
Read about the Hopfield-Brody "mouse brain", which used spike timing to do time-warp invariant speech recognition in our competition pages.
Brain Dasher is a project aiming to bring the information-efficient text-entry software, Dasher, to Brain-Computer Interfaces. Read more on the Brain-Dasher project page.
My final year project for my MSci. in Natural Sciences (Physics) at the University of Cambridge. My final year project (a mixture of experiment and computing) was on Quantitation of Bubbles using Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and was based at the Herschel Smith Laboratory for Molecular Chemistry.
My CV (quite out of date) is here (PDF format)
Between November 2004 and August 2006 I spent some of my time on the Ndiyo project, a not-for-profit company which is developing low-cost computer workstations for the developing (and developed) world.
In 2003 I spent two months in South Africa, creating a state-of-the-art Open Source computer lab at the new African Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
In 1997 I founded a humanitarian campaign group, the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. CASI started small, but grew into a highly-respected source of information about Iraq. I remained actively involved until the organisation gradually wound down after sanctions were ended in 2003. In 1999 I organised an international conference about sanctions on Iraq.
Some of my other interests are music (clarinet, piano, choral singing and recently a new instrument: violin), travel and photography.
Some of my digital photos are online.
I have various skills and experience in the world of computing (see my CV for details), including freelance consulting and internet security penetration testing ("white hat" hacking).
25/11/03: Some To Do art.
And my dad has created his own website - Colin Wills - violin maker.
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