Kevin B. Clark, Ph.D.
Affiliations: | | NASA NfoLD and NASA GeneLab AWG | NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA, United States |
| | | | Felidae Conservation Fund |
| | | Penn Center for Innovation Expert Netwrok | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States |
| | | | IEEE Nanotechnology and Biometrics Councils |
| | | | Cures Within Reach |
| | | | Peace Innovation Institute (Stanford University and The Hague) |
| | | | SETI Institute |
| | | Computational Science Support Network (CSSN), Multi-Tier Assistance, Training, and Computational Help (MATCH) | NSF Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services and Support (ACCESS) |
| | | User Program Community, Molecular Foundry | Berkeley Lab |
| | | | Frontier Development Lab |
| | | Shared interst group for Natural and Artificial Intelligence | Max Planck Alumni Association |
| | | Data Standards Technical Working Group | National Ecological Observatory Network |
Area:
Learning and Memory, Perception, Decision Making, Neuroprosthetics, Drug Design and Repurposing, Neurodegenerative Diseases and Traumatic Brain Injury, Neuromodulation, Synaptic Plasticity, Cellular Response Regulation, Quantum Biochemistry
Website:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-clark/58/67/19aGoogle:
"Kevin Clark"Bio:
Kevin B. Clark earned his Ph.D. from the Biopsychology of Learning and Memory/Brain and Cognitive Sciences Programs at Southern Illinois University in 1999. His academic lineage includes eight Nobel laureates and additional distinguished scientists. Among other professional activities, Dr. Clark serves or has served as Founding Member of Max Planck Alumni Entrepreneurs and Founding Organizer of MPAA shared interest group for Natural and Artificial Intelligence (sigNAI); Affiliate Member at the California NanoSystems Institute of the University of California Los Angeles; Consultant/Collaborator/Principal Investigator to the Research and Development Service at the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System; Campus Champion and Domain Champion in Biomedicine with NSF’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) at the University of Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing Applications; Subject Matter Expert, Campus Champion, and Domain Champion in Biomedicine with NSF's Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services and Support (ACCESS); Member of the Biological Collaborative Research Environment at the University of Illinois’ NIH Center of Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics; Senior Scientist/VP of Finance and Partnership Development of the Complex Biological Systems Alliance (an Ivy League/Oxbridge biotechnology consortium); Subject Matter Expert, Entrepreneur, and Mentor at UPenn’s Penn Center for Innovation Expert Network; Computational Neurolinguist/Ethnobiologist for the Alliance for Linguistic Diversity and Google’s The Endangered Languages Project; Research Affiliate at NASA Ames Research Center, SETI Institute, and NASA NfoLD; Member of NASA GeneLab Multi-Omics and Systems Biology Analysis Working Group; Faculty at Frontier Development Lab; B-SURE Mentor at BCM Translational Research Institute for Space Health; Lead, Neurology and Member, Host/Virus Interactions Subgroups of the COVID19 International Research Team; Advisor to Universities Space Research Association; Member of NASA Global Exploration Roadmap Workshop and NAI Virus Focus Group; Guest Expert of National Academies Project on Astrobiology Science Strategy, Project on Public Health Emergencies, Workshop on Emerging Neurotechnologies Legality, Workshop on Mobile Health Technologies, Workshop on Economics of Microbial Threats, Workshop on Student Success and Health, Workshop on Digital Clinical Trials, Summit on National Biodefense, Workshop on Public-Private Partnership Responses to COVID-19 and Future Pandemics, Workshop on Nonhuman Primate Models, and Workshop on Examining the Working Definition of Long COVID; Entrepreneurship Incubation Finalist at Stanford University’s Brainstorm Innovation Labs; Founding PIN Member of the Peace Innovation Institute at Stanford University and The Hague; Molecular Foundry User Community Member at Berkeley Labs; Bioconservationist and Board of Directors Member of the Felidae Conservation Fund; Science Advisory Board Co-Chairperson at Cures Within Reach; Science/Business Advisor to many proprietary and independent nonprofit organizations promoting new, rediscovery, and translational medical science, clinical practice, and biotechnology; IEEE Analytics Platform Consultant; Member of IEEE Brain, Life Sciences, and Quantum Initiative; Member of IEEE Biometrics and Nanotechnology Councils; Member of IEEE Standards Association, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, IEEE Computer Society, and IEEE Society for Social Implications of Technology Working Groups; Advisor at LinkedIn Corporation; Mentor at NeuroLaunch, CyberLaunch, NeuroLex Laboratories, Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute, Conservation X Labs, OSU Advantage Accelerator, and OHSU-MIT Hacking Medicine Invent-a-thon, and MIT COVID19 Challenge; Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics; Founding Member of Max Planck Alumni Entrepreneurs; Laboratory Coordinator and Basic/Clinical Science Predoctoral Research Fellow in Departments of Psychology, Physiology, and Plant Biology at Southern Illinois University; Member of many professional societies; Editor for numerous professional journals and technical books; Member of Oregon Department of Education ESSA State Planning Public Forums; Member of Portland Public Schools’ College and Career Pathways Advisory Council and Modernization Master Planning/Predesign/Design Committees; and Manager/Technical Advisor/Mentor for STEAM scholastic, science, entrepreneurial, and community outreach programs sponsored by the Society for Neuroscience, HHMI, FIRST, NSF, NASA, NIH, Conrad Challenge, ACM sigHPC, the UN Green Fins Environment Programme, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, NEON, MIT Solve, US AI Alliance, National AI Research Resource, and The Franklin Foundation for Innovation, where he was CPO and acting Chairperson, Board of Directors. He also has (co)authored over 80 peer-review scientific journal articles and book chapters, helped generate millions of US dollars in research funding, licensed several patents, and received multimedia news attention from Reuters, American Psychological Association, Discover Magazine, The Pharmaceutical Journal, The Scientist, Science, Air & Space Magazine, Fox News, Nature Neuropod, National Geographic, The Atlantic, NPR’s Morning Edition, Science, Nature, and other sources for his collaborative science, business, and charitable activities.
Dr. Clark has spent much of his research career using his training in disciplines of engineering, psychology, biochemistry/biophysics, physiology, neuroscience, and microbiology to study the evolution and biological basis of learning, memory, and intelligence. Dr. Clark’s award-winning research and patented inventions improving learning, memory, and recovery from traumatic brain injury through peripheral neuromodulation gained recognition from MacArthur fellow Dr. James McGaugh and other members of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. This work was instrumental in the US Food and Drug Administration’s decision to approve Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) for complex-partial seizures – the first medical device therapy marketed for treatment of convulsive epilepsy – and has encouraged potential derivative VNS indications for Alzheimer's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and tinnitus, among other pathologies. The same research helped motivate launch of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Targeted Neuroplasticity Training Program in 2016. Later comparative primate studies conducted with systems neuroscientist Dr. Nikos Logothetis focused on Dr. Clark’s interests in the neural basis of cognition across animal phylogeny, particularly cross-taxa models of perceptual and conceptual priming. Some of this research inspired Dr. Clark’s current work into digital health and neuroedutechnologies, natural and technology-based classical and quantum Hebbian learning in cognitive processing, nonrelativistic and relativistic information processing in spatial cognition, and entropic uncertainty in language privatization, disambiguation, and structure. His broader interests in the evolution of intelligent behavior largely began in graduate school while working with molecular and cellular evolutionist Dr. Sidney Fox, student and colleague of Nobelists Thomas Hunt Morgan and Linus Pauling, on protocell models of plasticity and communication and continue today with studies involving microbial sociality. By creating paradigms comparing microbial goal-directed behavior with animal decision making, Dr. Clark has shown microbes learn to simulate soft-matter quantum computers. These computational abilities, conforming to attributes of quantum Hebbian networks, putatively stem from intracellular signaling mediated by phylogenetically ubiquitous receptor-dependent fire-diffuse-fire Ca2+ reactions and quantum/classical molecular logic and memory systems. The major implications of Dr. Clark’s ground-breaking findings regarding microbial behavior and physiology have been acknowledged by noted experts worldwide for providing fundamental insights into cellular response regulation and into sensor, command, and control platforms useful for next-generation smart medical, industrial, and national defense nano/microbiotechnologies. His work extends to many topics, including, but not limited to, host-parasite and pathogen-pathogen interactions, cellular decision making, natural and “cognitive” computing, pharmaceutical and epidemiological control of infectious diseases, neural and aneural plasticity, neuromorphic architectures, learning and memory, problem solving, perception, information representation and processing, social behavior, adaptation to extreme environments, emergence of evolutionary and developmental transitions, sustainable human development, protection of endangered cultural heritages and diversity, ecosystem conservation and resource management, green energy production, bioremediation and -extraction, theragnostic and regenerative medicine, origins of life, and astrobiology.
Moreover, as a peer-respected and award-winning scientist, technologist, educator, community liaison, and business leader, Dr. Clark demonstrates a history of creating local to global (urban and rural) community outreach, educational, and business programs that improve career pipelines and workforce diversity, personalized and team instruction, discovery culture, organization scaling and branding, and product/services design, development, and commercialization in STEAM fields of interest. His past and current work, in collaboration with professional societies, corporate technology giants, world-class tertiary academic/research institutions, government agencies, community-centered organizations, and public school districts, stimulate STEAM innovation by establishing progressive government-industry-academia-community partnerships, special student/professional curricular and entrepreneurial programs, and advanced interactive (cognitive computing- and neuroscience-based) behavioral design, performance, and assessment methods. These endeavors, though framed within a larger geosocioeconomic mission and discourse, often take the form of small local or regional reform action beneficial for crafting stronger business and education strategies, policies, practices, and long-term positive out-comes for stakeholders and society, such as inspiring, informing, and enabling generations of people for better problem assessment and understanding, innovative solution discovery, and systematic preparedness, responsiveness, and resolution to some of Humanity's grand challenges.
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