Faculty & Staff Directory
Paul So
- Professor
- Chair, Department of Physics & Astronomy
Contact Info
- Name
- Dr. Paul T. So
- Job Title
- ProfessorChair, Department of Physics & Astronomy
- Website
- Phone Number
- Office Number
- Planetary Hall, Room 203B, MSN 3F3
Affiliations
Departments
- Physics & Astronomy Department (Administrative Faculty)
- Physics & Astronomy Department (Instructional Faculty)
- Neuroscience Program (Research Faculty)
- Physics & Astronomy Department (Faculty)
Research Areas
- Applied Science
- Neuroscience
- Physics
Education
- PhD, Nonlinear Dynamics, University of Maryland at College Park, (1995)
- BS, Physics & Math, Harvey Mudd College, (1988)
About
Dr. Paul So is the Chair of the Department of Physics & Astronomy.
Current Research
Dr. Paul So is a theoretical physicist specialized in dynamical systems analysis and its application to neuroscience. His work on dynamical systems spanned the development of control and observer techniques for high dimensional chaotic systems, theory and experimental work in quantum chaos, analysis of synchronization and coherence in chaotic systems, and the dynamical reconstruction of complex systems using unstable periodic orbits. The overarching goal of his research is the application of these tools from dynamical systems and other physical insights from statistical physics to a better understanding on the mechanisms for information processing in the brain and on dynamical causes related to different pathological neural diseases such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease.
Teaching Focus
Dr. Paul So teaches both introductory as well as advanced physics courses. He has more than 20 years of experience teaching and advising students in the department’s graduate programs.
Selected Publications
- T. B. Luke, E. Barreto, and P. So, “Complete Classification of the Macroscopic Behavior of a Heterogeneous Network of Theta Neurons,” Neural Computation, 25: 3207-3234 (2013).
- E. A. Martens, E. Barreto, S.H. Strogatz, E. Ott, P. So, and T.M. Antonsen, Exact Results for the Kuramoto Model with a Bimodal Frequency Distribution, Physical Review E, 79: 026204 (2009).
- P. So, J. T. Francis, T. I. Netoff, B. J. Gluckman, and S. J. Schiff, “Periodic Orbits: A New Language for Neuronal Dynamics,” Biophysical Journal, 74: 2776 (1998).
- P. So, E. Ott, S. J. Schiff, D. T. Kaplan, T. Sauer, and C. Grebogi, “Detecting Unstable Periodic Orbits in Chaotic Experimental Data,” Physical Review Letters, 76: 4705 (1996).
- S. J. Schiff, P. So, T. Chang, R. E. Burke, and T. Sauer, “Detecting Dynamical Interdependence and Generalized Synchrony through Mutual Prediction in a Neural Ensemble,” Physical Review E, 54: 6708 (1996).
Contact Info
- Name
- Dr. Paul T. So
- Job Title
- ProfessorChair, Department of Physics & Astronomy
- Website
- Phone Number
- Office Number
- Planetary Hall, Room 203B, MSN 3F3