Victor Quintanar-Zilinskas

Victor Quintanar-Zilinskas is a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine. His current research focus is the emergence of system-level information processing properties of many-neuron (on the order of 1000s) networks; he also studies the systems biology of transcription factor gradient maintenance over long distances.

Victor intends for his research focus to, in the near future, shift to the study of the following two phenomena. First, the working brain frequently witnesses the self-organization of brief episodes of synchronization between groups of neurons; this has an impact on information processing (e.g. in the context of decision-making). Second, complex dynamics generate information (Turing patterns are an illustration of this idea); information emergent from the dynamics of a brain-like system is of great potential cognitive utility. Modeling and EEG analysis results suggest the possibility that probability inferences and information that is fundamentally an interpretation of (rather than intrinsic to) sensory input (e.g. odorant toxicity), respectively, can be emergence products of the brain's dynamics.

He was raised in Palo Alto, CA and his interests and outlooks are heavily influenced by his upbringing in Silicon Valley's technoculture. He double-majored in math and biology at Santa Clara University (class of 2009). His undergraduate research in computational neuroscience engendered interest in the area that is now his current research program. He also worked with Geoffrey Bowker (who was, at the time, at Santa Clara University) to characterize the work practices of scholar communities that study complex systems (e.g. networks of ecologists that study various facets of the same ecosystem) and explain them in the context of the historical trajectory of scientific understanding of the systems under study. This work led to the development of the following framework (which will be appreciated by but unsurprising to this page's SFI-affiliated readers) for understanding the work practices in complex-system-centered scholarly communities: the increasing temporal resolution of data is encouraging a shift in the science of these systems from the (well-plowed) study of system processes to the explanation of salient events (e.g. shifts in the stable states of the composition of a local ocean bacteria population; large storms). Victor's current "applied philosophy" interest is the connections between Constructivism epistemology and creativity theory, and the philosophies of complexity and interdisciplinarity.