Paul Verschure

Paul Verschure is Catalan Institute of Advanced Studies (ICREA) Research Professor, and director of the neuro-engineering program at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalunya where he runs the Synthetic Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS) Laboratory (specs.upf.edu). He is founder/CEO of Eodyne Systems S.L. (Eodyne.com), which is commercializing a novel science grounded neurorehabilitation technology.

He received his MA and Ph.D. in Psychology, and Paul's scientific aim is to find a unified theory of mind and brain using synthetic methods and to apply it to the quality of life enhancing technologies. His theory of mind and brain, Distributed Adaptive Control, has been generalized to a range of brain structures and robotic systems and has laid the foundation for a novel neurorehabilitation approach called the Rehabilitation Gaming System (http://specs.upf.edu/research_in_neurorehabilitation). Paul explores new methods for the simulation, visualization, and exploration of complex data to support his DAC theory and advance clinical diagnostics and intervention in neuropathologies (brainx3.com). Complementary to his science, Paul has developed and deployed over 25 art installations (http://specs.upf.edu/installations). These include the biomimetic mixed reality space Ada experienced by over half a million visitors (2002) and more recently three virtual/augmented reality educational installations and applications for the Memorial Site Bergen-Belsen (2012 - ) which is now generalized to other sites across Europe.

Paul manages a multidisciplinary team of 30 researchers (specs.upf.edu) with whom he has published over 300 articles in leading journals and conferences in a range of disciplines. Paul collaborates with a wide network of international researchers. He is chair of the annual Barcelona Cognition, Brain, and Technology summer school and co-chair of the annual Convergent Science Network’s conference Living Machines.