Wei Ji Ma (

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

: Whee Ky;

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

: 马伟基) is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

in the Department of Psychology and the

Center for Neural Science Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

. Ma focuses on the areas of

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

, and

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

. He holds a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

from

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Ma is the 2021 recipient of the Jeffrey L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building from the

Cognitive Science Society The Cognitive Science Society is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields who hold the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind. The society prom ...

Biography

Ma grew up in

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

, the Netherlands. He received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

and

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

in 1996 and a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

in 1997, both from the University of Groningen. He continued at the University of Groningen, where he received a PhD in

in 2000. He transitioned into

computational neuroscience Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, computer simulations, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to u ...

as a

post-doctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral rese ...

fellow under

Christof Koch Christof Koch ( ; born November 13, 1956) is a German-American neurophysiologist and computational neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural basis of consciousness. He is the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for B ...

at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

from 2002 to 2004, and subsequently as a post-doctoral fellow under Alexandre Pouget at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

until 2008. He received his first faculty position in the Department of Neuroscience at

Baylor College of Medicine Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is a medical school and research center in Houston, Texas, within the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical center. BCM is composed of four academic components: the School of Medicine, the Graduate Sc ...

in 2008 and remained there until 2013, when he took an associate professor position at New York University, where he has a dual appointment in the Center for Neural Science and the Department of Psychology.

Research

Ma researches how the human brain represents and processes

uncertainty Uncertainty refers to epistemic situations involving imperfect or unknown information. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown. Uncertainty arises in partially observable or ...

. A large portion of his academic work is devoted to the construction of Bayesian inference models which describe how an observer arrives at beliefs about things in the world from noisy information. This modeling spans the range of describing the behavior of an observer, for example how an observer might infer two sensory inputs arise from a common source, to the activity of a population of neurons implementing the Bayesian operations. A complementary line of inquiry is studying encoding strategies in

working memory Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily. It is important for reasoning and the guidance of decision-making and behavior. Working memory is often used synonymously with short-term memory, ...

, specifically highlighting the relationships between the role of noisy representations of objects in the brain and the number that can be recalled correctly. Broadly, his modeling focuses can be described as examining encoding models, decision rules, and probabilistic computations. In recent years, his work has focused on planning and thinking ahead in complex decision problems.

Representative publications

* Ma, W. J. (2012). Organizing probabilistic models of perception. ''Trends in Cognitive Sciences'', ''16''(10), 511-518. *Ma, W.J., Beck, J.M., Latham, P.E., & Pouget, A. (2006). Bayesian inference with probabilistic population codes. ''Nature Neuroscience'', ''9''(11), 1432–1438. *Ma, W. J., Husain, M., & Bays, P. M. (2014). Changing concepts of working memory. ''Nature Neuroscience'', ''17''(3), 347-356. *Ma, W. J., & Jazayeri, M. (2014). Neural coding of uncertainty and probability. ''Annual Review of Neuroscience'', ''37'', 205-220. *Ma, W. J., Navalpakkam, V., Beck, J. M., Van Den Berg, R., & Pouget, A. (2011). Behavior and neural basis of near-optimal visual search. ''Nature Neuroscience'', ''14''(6), 783-790. *Wilken, P. & Ma, W.J. (2004). A detection theory account of change detection. ''Journal of Vision'', ''4''(12), 1120–35.

Non-academic activities

Ma is a significant contributor in scientific outreach efforts. He is a founding member of the Scientist Action and Advocacy Network. In that capacity, he has been an expert witness, providing scientific testimony to the New York City Council Committees on Juvenile Justice & Courts and Legal Services on the issue of adolescent brain development. He is the co-founder and the current chairman of the board and CFO of the Rural China Education Foundation, whose goal is to improve the quality and efficacy of childhood education in order to improve the quality of life in rural communities in China. He was a neuroscience consultant for ''The Brain Piece'', a dance interpretation of the brain and mind, and which has played in over 25 festivals and screenings globally. He was also a performer in ''The Brain Piece'''s trailer, ''Dance of the Neuron'', which was selected for the 2017 In/Motion: Chicago's Dance Film Festival. He also created and co-organizes the Growing Up in Science talk series where he leads interviews and discussions on scientists’ personal maturation in academia. In addition to leading the series at NYU, he has brought it to scientific conferences and other universities.

Biography

Research

Representative publications

Non-academic activities

References

External links