Carina Curto

Carina Curto is an American mathematician. She studies neuroscience and math.[1] She explores how neurons in the human brain understand the world.[1] She is a professor and co-Associate Head for Graduate Studies at the Department of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University.[2] The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awarded Curto the Sloan Research Fellowship in 2011, an award that is given annually to the best scholars across the US and Canada.[3]

Early life and education

Curto was raised in Iowa City, IA.[4] Her father was a mathematician.[1] As a child, Curto though studying math was too ordinary.[1]

Her parents are from Argentina.[1] She spoke Spanish at home.[1]

She graduated from Iowa City West High School.[4] She loved to learn.[1] Curto took many classes at University of Iowa while she was in high school.[1] She was on the debate team.[1] Curto was also a high-ranked tennis player for the state of Iowa.[4][5]

Curto received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 2000.[2] In high school she planned to study physics.[5] She studied math and physics.[1] Curto went to Duke University for graduate school.[2][1] She planed to study string theory.[1] Instead, she got interested in neuroscience.[1] She earned her Ph.D in 2005.[2]

Career

Curto studied mathematics in graduate school.[2] She started studying the math for physics.[2] Curto learned about neurology in her fourth year of graduate school.[2] She became interested in neuroscience and switched her research.[2]

After earning her Ph.D., Curto spent three years as Rutgers University doing more research at the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience.[1] She was an instructor at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Studies.[6] She then joined the Math Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.[3] In 2014, Curto joined the Pennsylvania State University math faculty.[7] She got tenure in 2019.[8]

She uses math to improve neuroscience.[2] She builds mathematical models for understanding how neurons work.[1][2][3] Curto also finds new ways to use math to understand biology.[1][9] As a part of her research, Curto created network songs based on firing rates of neurons, which showed the rhythmic activity of neurons.[2]

Curto's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health for the past 13 years.[1][7] She is a 2021 Simons Fellow in Mathematics.[7] She won the Faculty Scholar Medal from Penn State in 2020.[8] In 2012 she earned a Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty.[7] She also earned a 2011 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 "Carina Curto" (PDF). American Mathematical Society. March 2018. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 Roberts, Siobhan (2018-06-19). "Her Key to Modeling Brains: Ignore the Right Details". Quanta Magazine. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN'S CURTO SELECTED FOR SLOAN RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP. (2011, Feb 16). US Fed News Service, Including US State News - from ProQuest
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Iowa City West junior Carina Curto." (1995, March 30). The Gazette (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City), p. 6. Retrieved from NewsBank: Access World News – Historical and Current. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Palmer, L. (1996, April 18). Talented trio leads West. The Gazette (Cedar Rapids-Iowa City), p. 7. Retrieved from NewsBank: Access World News – Historical and Current. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  6. ↑ Curto, Carina; Itskov, Vladimir (2008-10-31). "Cell Groups Reveal Structure of Stimulus Space". PLOS Computational Biology. 4 (10): e1000205. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000205. ISSN 1553-7358. PMC 2565599. PMID 18974826.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "Professor of Mathematics Carina Curto named Simons Fellow in Mathematics | Penn State University". www.psu.edu. Retrieved 2022-03-01.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 PENN STATE ANNOUNCES 2020 UNIVERSITY-WIDE FACULTY AND STAFF AWARDS. (2020, Mar 27). US Fed News Service, Including US State News. Retrieved 2021-12-10.
  9. ↑ Knudson, Kevin. "There's A Geometric Structure Hidden Inside The Brains Of Rats". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-03-01.