President

Dr. Erik De Schutter (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan and University of Antwerp, Belgium) became president of OCNS in 2010. He started a transformation of OCNS into a member-based society.

Erik De Schutter studied medicine in Belgium where he got his MD in 1984 at the University of Antwerp and subsequently specialized as a neuropsychiatrist. During this residency he started work on computational modeling of central pattern generation in the leech. In 1990 he became a research fellow at the California Institute of Science and Technology where he developed his famous Purkinje cell model. Subsequently he started in 1993 the Theoretical Neurobiology group at the University of Antwerp which focused on modeling the cerebellum. There he contributed to understanding synaptic plasticity and oscillations in the cerebellum and on software development for reaction-diffusion modeling and automated parameter searching. The group also contributed experimental studies on cerebellar physiology. Erik De Schutter became in a 2007 a professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) where he leads the Computational Neuroscience Unit. The work at OIST continues cerebellar modeling with an increasing emphasis on calcium dynamics and disease.

Erik De Schutter is involved with several international organizations promoting computational neuroscience. He is member of the governing board of the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility.

Past Presidents

Ranu Jung (2006-2009)

Christiane Linster (2003-2005)