Associate Professor, SIS-Information Science & Telecommunications University of Pittsburgh Email: pmunro@mail.sis.pitt.edu Individual Website: http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~pmunro

Ph. D., Brown University

Research Interests

My primary research interest is to abstract mathematical and computational principles underlying learning at the synaptic, neuronal, and systems levels. Thus, I have conducted studies that examine neurophysiological phenomena such as the development of feature sensitive neurons in sensory cortical areas, long term potentiation (LTP), and most recently spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP).

Ultimately, I feel that neural network models provide a language for understanding the relation between the mind (cognitive phenomena) and the brain (neurobiological). Thus I also have a strong interest in developing neurally inspired models at a cognitive level. Projects at this level include: The acquisition of spatial information to form a cognitive map. Analysis of the impact of early learning on adult representations learning in the absense of a teacher (self-supervised learning)transfer of learning from a previously learned task to a novel task.

A final component to my research agenda is the application of neural learning processes to real-world problems. Neural network learning procedures have resulted in novel approaches to tasks in business, engineering, and medicine. Togther with my students and colleagues, I have developed approaches to the following set of tasks: Image Compression (data storage and communication) Medical Diagnosis (medicine) Treatment Optimization (medicine) Inference of personal data from television viewing habits (marketing).

Recent Publications

• Hernandez G, Munro P, Rubin J: The effect of spike redistribution in a reciprocally connected pair of neurons wth spike-timing dependent plasticity. Neurocomputing 52: 347-353, 2003

• Munro P, Sanguansintukual S: A neural network approach to treatment optimization. AMIA Annu Symp Proc 2002.

• Munro PW, Cottrell G: Connectionist network interactions between frequency effects and age of acquisition effects in a connectionist network. Twenty Third Ann Conf Cogn Sci Soc Proc: 703-708. Lawrence Erlbaum: Mahwah NJ, 2001.

• Ghiselli-Crippa T, Munro PW: Effects of spatial and temporal contiguity on the acquisition of spatial information. In SA Solla, TK Leen, K-R Muller (eds), Adv Neural Inf Process Syst 12. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2000.

• Munro PW, Hernandez G: LTD facilitates learning in a noisy environment. In SA Solla, TK Leen, K-R Muller (eds), Adv Neural Inf Process Syst 12. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 2000.
• Munro PW, Parmanto B: Competition among networks improves committee performance. In MC Mozer, MI Jordan, T Petsche (eds), Adv Neural Inf Process Syst 9. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1997.
• Parmanto B, Munro PW, Doyle HR: Reducing variance of committee prediction with resampling techniques. Connection Science 8: 405-425, 1996.