Dr. Michael A. Arbib is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science, as well as a Professor of Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Southern California (USC), which he joined in September of 1986. He has also been named as one of the eleven University Professors at USC in recognition of his contributions across many disciplines.
Born in England in 1940, Arbib grew up in Australia (with a B.Sc.(Hons.)) in Pure Mathematics from Sydney University), and received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from MIT in 1963. After five years at Stanford, he became chairman of the Department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1970, and remained in that Department until his move to USC in 1986.
At the University of Massachusetts he helped found the Center for Systems Neuroscience, the Cognitive Science Program, and the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics, for each of which he served as director. At USC, he was founder and first Director of the Center for Neural Engineering. He now directs the USC Brain Project, an interdisciplinary effort in neuroinformatics. He has published more than 250 papers and author or editor of more than 30 books. His edited volume, The Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks (The MIT Press, 1995) is a massive compendium embracing studies in detailed neuronal function, system models of brain regions, connectionist models of psychology and linguistics, mathematical and biological studies of learning, and technological applications of artificial neural networks. Neural Organization: Structure, Function, and Dynamics (The MIT Press, 1998), co-authored with Peter Erdi and the late John Szentagothai, provides a comprehensive view of the working of the brain. His latest book is Computing the Brain: A Guide to Neuroinformatics (co-edited with Jeffrey Grethe; Academic Press, 2001).
