Originally posted by robbie carrobie
GB is ok, but alas hes only human! 😛
Or she is not.
c.f. Misha Mahowald.
As a young girl, she used the name Misha (short for Michelle) as a nom-de-plume in her diary, but later adopted it as her official name. After graduating high school, she attended the California Institute of Technology, graduating with a degree in biology in 1985. She continued at Caltech as a PhD student in Computation and Neural Systems under the supervision of Professor Carver Mead, a specialist in computer science. For her thesis, Mahowald created her own project by combining the fields of biology, computer science, and electrical engineering, to produce the 'silicon retina.'
The silicon retina used analog electrical circuits to mimic the biological functions of rod cells and cone cells in the retina of the eye. The invention was not only highly original and potentially useful as a device for restoring sight to the blind, but it was also one of the most eclectic feats of electrical and biological engineering of the time. This remarkable example of engineering earned Mahowald a well-deserved reputation as one of the most famous female engineers of her age. She was awarded a doctorate in computational neuroscience in 1992, and her invention of the silicon retina and the silicon neuron earned her articles in the prestigious scientific journals Scientific American and Nature, as well as four patents and the Clauser Prize for her dissertation. A revised version of her dissertation[2] was subsequently published in book form.[1]
Mahowald then re-located to the University of Oxford for one year to do a post-doctoral fellowship with eminent neuroscientists Kevan Martin and Rodney Douglas. After the completion of this project, Mahowald moved to Zurich, Switzerland to help found the Institute of Neuroinformatics (Institut für Neuroinformatik), a research institution whose mission is to discover the key principles by which brains work and to implement these in artificial systems that interact intelligently with the real world[2].
Like many creative geniuses, Mahowald was a complicated individual, haunted by conflicting emotions. While drawn passionately to science itself, she did not find a career in science welcoming to women. She felt out of place with, and often misunderstood by the mostly male student body at Caltech, and outnumbered by the predominantly male faculty there and elsewhere. Also, she found that the profession of scientist was one which drew her farther and farther away from her family and home environment, and she was not happy in either Oxford or Zurich. In 1996 she was made a member of the Women in Technology International (WITI) 'Hall of Fame'[3]. Mahowald died in Zurich later that same year at the age of 33. However, she should be remembered not only as a pioneer in the field of electrical engineering, but also as a pioneering woman in field where women have not always felt welcomed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misha_Mahowald
Died with no excuse at the age of 33 in 1996, story of death untold, and GB arrived 2007, on the anniversary of .........
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Misha Mahowald was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1963. She received her professional training at the California Institute of Technology with a B.S. in biology in 1985 and a was the first woman at Caltech to receive the Clauser Prize for her Ph.D. thesis in computational neuroscience in 1992. The Clauser Prize is awarded for work that demonstrates the potential of opening new avenues of human thought and endeavor.
Misha was definitely that kind of scientist and truly ahead of her time. During her doctoral and post-doctoral research she pioneered the emerging field of neuromorphic engineering which is the application of analog CMOS VLSI technology to the fabrication of analog electronic circuits that emulate real neural systems.
Her work continues today at the Institute fuer Neuroinformaticks in Zurich Switzerland under the direction of Dr. Kevin Martin and the close supervision of Dr. Rodney Douglas and a team of 20 scientists. Their goal is to identify the computational principles that make the brain so formidably versatile and powerful, and attempt to embody them into a new and innovative type of computer architecture.
Dr. Mahowald's work has received considerable acclaim including a major paper in Scientific American entitled "Silicon Retina", and has been featured in the popular scientific press and radio. In addition, she was one of five woman to be featured in the WGBH TV documentary, "Discovering Women." She was truly one of the most innovative and imaginative persons and her legacy of ideas continues on not only in Zurich, but in many parts of the world today. Misha Mahowald was 33 when she died in December of 1996.
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Anybody find me an exact date of her death? It's always been an extraordinary unexplained fate to me... and some. 🙁
-m.
True Fact
08 Dec '11 12:131 edit
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