Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics
Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Assistant Research Professor in Neurobiology
Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
Member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Campus mail:
Duke Box 90999, Durham, NC 27708
Phone:
(919) 613-8338
Email address:
john.pearson@duke.edu
My research focuses on the application of machine learning methods to the analysis of brain data and behavior. I have a special interest in the neurobiology of reward and decision-making, particularly issues surrounding foraging, impulsivity, and self-control. More generally, I am interested in computational principles underlying brain organization at the mesoscale, and work in my lab studies phenomena that range from complex social behaviors to coding principles of the retina.
Education and Training
- University of Kentucky, Lexington, B.S. 1999
- Princeton University, Ph.D. 2004
Selected Grants and Awards
- Motor Modulation of Auditory Processing
- Neurobiology Training Program
- Neurocomputational Approaches to Emotion Representation
- Receptive field coordination across mosaics of diverse retinal ganglion cell types in the mammalian retina
- Corticostriatal contributions to motor exploration and reinforcement
- Quantitative Methods for HIV/AIDS Research
- Medical Scientist Training Program
- Real-time, all-optical interrogation of neural microcircuitry in the pretectum
- Adaptive Algorithms for Automated Circuit Dissection
- Computational Modeling of Decision Making by Prosecutors and Jurors in Criminal Justice
- A Systems Biology Approach to HIV-associated Neurocognitive Impairment: Role of Drug Abuse and Neuroinflammation
- Neural Circuit Mechanisms Mediating TMS and Oxytocin Effects on Social Cognition
- Nonparametric Bayes Methods for Big Data in Neuroscience
- Mechanisms of Parkinsonian Impulsivity in Human Subthalamic Nucleus
- Animal Model of Genetics and Social Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorders
- Contributions of Areas LIP and VIP to Numerical Behavior