Indication: Professor Sérgio Teixeira da Fonseca – Department of Physiotherapy – EEFFTO – UFMG
Period: June 20th to July 11th 2011
Scott Kelso holds the Martha Creech Chair of Distinguished Professor of Science at Florida Atlantic University, where he is also Professor of Psychology, Biological Sciences, and Biomedical Sciences. Between 1985 and 2005 he served as Founding Director of the Florida Atlantic’s Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences where he led the NIMH National Training Program in this new interdisciplinary field. For most of his scientific career he has been trying to understand how human beings (and human brains) – individually and together – coordinate behavior on multiple levels, all the way from the cell to cognition.
Doctor Kelso grew up in Derry in Northern Ireland and trained, originally as a teacher, at Stranmillis University College in Belfast, where he graduated with honors in 1969. In 1971 he left Ireland and moved to North America where he obtained his degree Bachelor’s degree from the University of Calgary (1972) and Master’s and Doctor’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1975). After 2 years as a Professor at the University of Iowa, he accepted a position as Research Scientist for seven years (1978-1985) at Haskins Laboratories at Yale University, where he studied speech production. He was appointed Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Connecticut in 1982 before assuming his current role in 1985. He is the recipient of numerous distinctions including Senior Scientist and Innovations from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Honorary of France and the University of Toulouse (Paul Sabatier). In 2007 he was honored with the title of Laureate Pierre de Fermat. His most recent books are Dynamic Patterns: the Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior (1995 and 1997, MIT Press), now in its 4th edition, and The Complementary Nature (with D.A. Engstrøm) published by MIT Press in 2006.