School of Physics Soft Condensed Matter & Biophysics Seminar: Prof. Noah Cowan, Johns Hopkins University

Control theory arose from a need to control synthetic systems, or "plants": from regulating steam engines to tuning radios to devices capable of autonomous movement, it provided a formal mathematical basis for understanding the role of feedback in the stability (or change) of dynamical systems. Living systems ubiquitously exploit such regulatory mechanisms for maintaining, controlling, and adjusting parameters across all scales, from single molecules to populations of organisms, from microseconds to years. This feedback can radically alter the dynamic character of the subsystems that comprise the closed loop system, rendering unstable systems stable, fragile systems robust, or slow systems fast. This talk focuses on feedback control of locomotion, where the dynamics of the neuromechanical "plant" are shaped by closed-loop feedback from sensory systems. We draw on examples from aquatic, terrestrial, and aerial locomotion to highlight how control theory sheds light on how neural feedback interacts with the physical dynamics of animals to determine their stability and response to naturalistic perturbations carried out in the laboratory.

N. J. Cowan, M. M. Ankarali, J. P. Dyhr, M. S. Madhav, E. Roth, S. Sefati, S. Sponberg, S. A. Stamper, E. S. Fortune, and T. L. Daniel . “Feedback control as a framework for understanding tradeoffs in biology”.Integr Comp Biol, 54(2):223-237, 2014.

Bio:

Noah Cowan earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2001 in electrical engineering. Following his Ph.D., he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley for 2 years. In 2003, he joined the mechanical engineering department at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, where he is now an Associate Professor. Prof. Cowan's research interests include mechanics and multisensory control in animals and machines. Prof. Cowan received the NSF PECASE award in 2010, the James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award in Complex Systems in 2012, and the William H. Huggins Award for excellence in teaching in 2004.