Christof Koch

Dr. Chistof Koch is the President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Koch studies the biophysics of computation, and the neuronal basis of visual perception, attention, and consciousness. Koch’s research addresses scientific questions using a widely multidisciplinary approach. He is best known for his work on the neural bases of consciousness. He considers consciousness a scientifically tractable problem, and has been influential in arguing that consciousness can now be approached using the modern tools of neurobiology. His primary collaborator in the endeavour of locating the neural correlates of consciousness was the late FHM Francis Crick. At the Allen Institute Koch is leading their high through-put, large scale ten year, cortical coding project. The mission of MindScope is to understand the computations that lead from photons to behavior by observing and modeling the physical transformations of signals in the visual brain of behaving mice for one perception-action cycle. The project seeks to catalogue all the building blocks (ca. 100 distinct cell types) of the then visual cortical regions and associated structures (thalamus, colliculus) and their dynamics. Koch has published extensively, and his writings and interests integrate theoretical, computational and experimental neuroscience. His most recent book, Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist, blends science and memoir to explore topics in discovering the roots of consciousness. Stemming in part from a long-standing collaboration with the late Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, Koch authored the book The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach. He has also authored the technical booksBiophysics of Computation: Information Processing in Single Neurons and Methods in Neuronal Modeling: From Ions to Networks, and served as editor for several books on neural modeling and information processing. His scientific articles appear in journals such as Nature, PLoS Computational Biology, and Science. He has received diverse awards for his research, including the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award and the Alexander von Humboldt Prize. In addition to his American Academy of Arts and Sciences membership, Koch is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.