Contact Information
Room 2235
Engineering II Building
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93109
pdanzl@engineering.ucsb.edu
Research Interests
I am currently a graduate student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara. My advisor is Jeff Moehlis.
Our research is focused on dynamical systems and controls applications in neuroscience. In particular, I am interested in feedback control of oscillatory neurons with the objective of controlling their spike timing and level of synchrony. Ultimately, we strive to develop optimal control strategies for Electrical Deep Brain Stimulation, a treatment of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, chronic pain, and depression.
Brief Biography
I grew up near Minneapolis, Minnesota and received my BSME from the University of Minnesota in 2002. After graduation, I moved to South Bend, IN to work as an engineer for Honeywell Aerospace. While at Honeywell, I worked primarily on design and analysis of fuel control systems for aerospace applications. I left Honeywell to begin my graduate studies at UCSB in Fall 2005. I am currently a third year graduate student and have received the NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Science and Engineering.
Publications
Refereed Journal Articles
Refereed Conference Proceedings
- Event-Based Feedback Control of Nonlinear Oscillators Using Phase Response Curves, with J. Moehlis. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conf. on Decision and Control, New Orleans, LA, pages 5806-5811, December 2007.
- Spike Timing Control of Oscillatory Neuron Models Using Impulsive and Quasi-Impulsive Charge-Balanced Inputs, with J. Moehlis. In Proceedings of the American Control Conference, Seattle, WA, pages 171-176, June 2008.
Talks and Posters
- Spike Timing Control of Oscillatory Neuron Models Using Impulsive and Quasi-Impulsive Charge-Balanced Inputs. American Control Conference, Seattle WA 6.11.08
- Dynamics and Control of Oscillatory Neural Systems: Current Results and Proposed Research. Candidacy Presentation, Santa Barbara CA 5.23.08
- Event-Based Feedback Control of Nonlinear Oscillators Using Phase Response Curves. IEEE Conf. on Decision and Control, New Orleans LA 12.14.07
- Feedback Control of Neural Firing Synchrony Using Phase Response Curves. IGERT Research Symposium, Carnegie-Mellon University 6.24.07
- Phase Reduction Methods and Application to Feedback Controlled Deep Brain Stimulation. SIAM Conference on Applications of Dynamical Systems, Snowbird UT 5.28.07
- Desynchronize This! Event-based feedback control of nonlinear oscillators. IGERT Systems Biology Seminar, Santa Barbara CA 4.9.07
- Partial Phase Synchronization of Uncoupled Populations: An Application of Phase Reduction Methods. Grand Challenges in Neural Computation, Santa Fe NM 2.20.07
- Partial Phase Synchronization of Uncoupled Populations: An Application of Phase Reduction Methods. Theoretical Ecology Seminar, Santa Barbara CA 11.8.06
Curriculum Vitae
Relevant Links
- Jeff Moehlis (my advisor)
- UCSB Mechanical Engineering
- Tay Netoff's Lab
- UCSB CCDC
- UCSB CSE IGERT
- University of Minnesota