Paul Verschure

Prof. Dr Paul FMJ Verschure is a Research Professor at the Catalan Institute of Advanced Studies (ICREA), Director of the Synthetic Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems Laboratory (SPECS-Lab) within the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC, Barcelona), and the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST). He is located in the new technical campus of the Polytechnical University of Catalunya (UPC) - Barcelona East School of Engineering (EEBE). Dr Verschure has received both MA and PhD in Psychology. He has pursued research in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Neuroscience. Paul aims to investigate the principles underlying the neuronal organization of perception, cognition, and action integration. He is developing a unified theory of mind and brain, by which to validate those principle using synthetic methods. All applied to the quality of life, enhancing technologies (sapiens5.net), and transferred them towards novel real-world technologies, thus advancing the human condition in areas of education and brain health. Dr. has worked at different leading institutions: The Neuroscience Institute and the Salk Institute, both in San Diego. The University of Amsterdam, the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-ETH. In the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, at the Technology Department, where he was the founder and is the Academic Director of the Interdisciplinary Master program: Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media. He has represented Switzerland at the Global Science Forum of the OECD, is chair of the annual Barcelona Cognition Brain and Technology summer school and co-chair of the yearly Convergent Science Network’s conference Living Machines. Professor manages a multidisciplinary team of about 30 researchers (specs-lab.com) with whom he has published over 300 articles in leading journals and conferences in a range of disciplines. He also collaborates with an extensive network of international researchers and hosts a scientific podcast.