Director, Neurosystems Engineering

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In 2009, Dr. Gerold (Gerry) Yonas joined The Mind Research Network as the Director of Neurosystems Engineering. After working as a scientist, engineer, and manager at the Jet Propulsion Lab and then Physics International Co., in 1972, he joined Sandia, where he initiated and directed the particle beam fusion program, and the advanced simulation development and applications activities. He also initiated and directed the development of Sandia’s pulsed power research capability.

In 1983, Dr. Yonas served as chairman of the Directed Energy Weapon Panel of the “Fletcher” study that formed the basis for the Strategic Defense Initiative Program. He subsequently served as the first chief scientist for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO). After serving as president of Titan Technologies, he returned to Sandia and became vice president of Systems, Science, and Technology, and in 1999, he became Sandia’s principal scientist and initiated Sandia’s Advanced Concepts Group.

He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Physics at Cornell University, and a PhD in Engineering Science and Physics at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Yonas is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He received the USAF medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, the BEAMS prize, the IEEE Peter Haas Award, the Fusion Power Associates Leadership Award, and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. He participates in several defense boards, is an adjunct professor in ECE at the University of New Mexico (UNM), the Bi-National Sustainability Laboratory Board, the advisory council for ECE at Cornell University, and the ECE advisory council at UNM. He has published extensively in the fields of intense particle beams, inertial confinement fusion, strategic defense technologies, technology transfer, and “wicked engineering.”

Dr. Yonas is dedicated to creating the new field of Neurosystems Engineering (NE) that links the advances in neuroscience with systems engineering through interdisciplinary teams that focus on the development of solutions to complex system problems that involve behavior, cognition, and neuro technology.

Neurosystems engineering (NE) is a new interdisciplinary field linking neuroscience and engineering that focuses on the development and organization of complex systems linking behavior, cognition and technology.

The need for NE arose with the increase in complexity of both neuroscience and engineering, as well as the rapid advances in the underlying science and technology and the realization that our nation's most important problems are at the nexus of neuroscience and engineering.

As an approach, NE is: 1) holistic and interdisciplinary, 2) focused on defining customer needs and functionality early in the development cycle, and 3) iterative in considering the complete problem in design synthesis and system validation necessary to document ongoing requirements and successful implementation.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach to NE is inherently complex, since the behavior of and interaction among system components are not well defined or fully understood. NE encourages use of personnel (e.g., cognitive psychologists, anthropologists, neuroscientists, engineers) tools (e.g., brain imaging, modeling and simulation, high performance computing) and techniques (e.g., TMS to stimulate response, independent component analysis of neuronal networks) to better comprehend and manage complexity in linking brain, behavior, and technology.