BIO - I am a cognitive neuroscientist working on consciousness, which means I try to understand how subjective sensory qualities (like the vividness of colors, the horrible painfulness of toothaches, etc) come about, by thinking about the ways the brain processes information. These issues have interested me since I was an undergraduate student in Hong Kong. After finishing my thesis in philosophy, I went to the UK on a Rhodes scholarship. At Oxford, Dick Passingham took me on as a graduate student, and I started to study the brain using fMRI and TMS. Most of the work done then was on how we spontaneously produce choices and actions, and what role does consciousness play in these situations. After I finished my doctorate, I moved to London, and have since been focusing more on vision. Since last fall I've joined Columbia University, NYC, to start a new lab. Here you can find my critique of the current imaging studies of visual consciousness, and a sketch of my own theory (now published here). From my CV you can find more details, including contact information, as well as links to my publications.
NEWS - Conferences: This coming academic year I'll probably try to go to COSYNE in Salt Lake city, ASSC in Berlin, and VSS in Florida. Graduate supervision: I plan NOT to take on new grad students this year (to start in Fall 2009).
TEACHING - I am teaching a course on Attention and Perception in the Spring term. In Fall I will be teaching two seminars, both on consciousness, one by myself, focusing more on cognitive neuroscience, and another one together with philosopher Ned Block from NYU.
UPCOMING TALKS - SEP 18: NYU Psychology; SEP 27: Passingham's festschrift, Oxford, UK; OCT 6: Neurophi seminars, Boston; OCT 31: CUNY Grad Center Philosophy. NOV 6: Baylor University, Waco, Texas; DEC 17: Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; MAR 19, 2009: Harvard