Noah Benson, Ph. D.

Depts. of Psychology & Neurology
University of Pennsylvania
3401 Walnut Street, Suite 328C
Philadelphia, PA 19104

 
    Curriculum Vitae (PDF, DOC)        
 
 
 

Education

Ph. D., University of Washington, 2005-2010
    School of Medicine, Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics

B. S., Purdue University, 2001-2005
    Major Concentrations: Mathematics, Computer Science, Biology (triple-major)
    Coursework Foci: discrete math, statistics, algorithms, theory of computation, biochemistry

Honors and Grants  
2006 Student Paper Competition Finalist, American Medical Informatics Association Conference
2005-2008 National Library of Medicine Research Training Grant
2005-2008 ARCS Foundation Top Future Scientist Fellowship (www.arcsfoundation.org)
2004 Hughes Bioinformatics Undergraduate Research Fellowship

Experience  
2010-Present Post-doctoral Researcher with Drs. David Brainard and Geoff Aguirre, Depts. of Psychology and Neurology, University of Pennsylvania
2006-2010 Graduate Student under Dr. Valerie Daggett, Protein Simulation Analysis and Data Mining, Division of Biomedical and Health Informatics, University of Washington
2006 Graduate Rotation with Dr. Ira Kalet, Markov Models as a Method of Predicting Tumor Spread
2005 Graduate Rotation with Dr. Valerie Daggett, Clustering of Protein Transition States
2003-2005 Undergraduate Research Assistant under Dr. Chris Bailey-Kellogg, Graph Theory and NMR

Publications

  • Benson NC, Butt OB, Brainard DH, Aguirre GK (2014). Correction of distortion in flattened representations of the cortical surface allows prediction of V1-V3 functional organization from anatomy. PLoS Comput. Biol. In Press.
  • Benson NC, Manning JR, Brainard DH (2014) Unsupervised learning of cone spectral classes from natural images. PLoS Comput. Biol. Submitted.
  • Datta R, Benson NC, Prasad S, Jacobson SG, Cideciyan A, et al. (2014). A common mode of brain alteration in blindness. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. Submitted.
  • Butt OH, Benson NC, Datta R, Aguirre GK (2013) The fine-scale functional correlation of striate cortex in sighted and blind people. J. Neurosci. 33(41):16209-19.
  • Benson NC, Butt OH, Datta R, Radoeva PD, Brainard DH, Aguirre GK (2012) The retinotopic organization of striate cortex is well predicted by surface topology. Curr. Biol. 22(21): 2081-5
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  • Benson NC, Daggett V (2012) A comparison of methods for the analysis of molecular dynamics simulations. J. Phys. Chem. B 116(29): 8722-31.
  • Benson NC, Daggett V (2012) Wavelet analysis of protein motion. Int. J. Wavelets Multi. Inf. Process. 10: 1250040-59.
  • Benson NC, Daggett V (2012) A chemical group graph representation for efficient high-throughput analysis of atomistic protein simulations. J. Bioinformatics Comput. Biol. 0(2): 1250008-24
  • van der Kamp MW, Schaeffer RD, Jonsson AL, Scouras AD, Simms A, Toofanny RD, Benson NC, Anderson PC, Merkley ED, Rysavy S, Bromley D, Beck DAC, Daggett V (2010) Dynameomics: a comprehensive database of protein dynamics. Structure 18: 423-435.
  • Benson NC, Daggett V (2009) Dynameomics: large-scale assessment of native protein flexibility. Protein Sci. 17(12): 2038-50.
  • Simms AM, Toofanny RD, Kehl C, Benson NC, Daggett V (2008) Dynameomics data warehouse: Design of a computational lab workflow and scientific data repository. Protein Eng. Des. Sel. 21(6): 369-77.
  • Benson NC, Whipple M, Kalet IJ (2006) A Markov model approach to predicting regional tumor spread in the lymphatic system of the head and neck. AMIA Annu. Symp. Proc. :31-5.

Conference Abstracts

  • Benson NC, Butt OH, Brainard DH, Aguirre GK (2013) Cortical surface structure predicts extrastriate retinotopic function. Poster presented at the 13th Annual Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Meeting. 9-15 May.
  • Benson NC, Brainard DH (2012) An unsupervised learning technique for typing cones in the retinal mosaic. Talk presented at the 12th Annual Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Meeting. 11-16 May.
  • Butt OH, Benson NC, Datta R, Aguirre GK (2012) V1 resting-state functional connectivity reflects polar angle and eccentricity both within and between hemispheres. Poster presented at the 12th Annual Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Meeting.11-16 May.
  • Benson NC, Brainard DH, Stambolian D (2012) Contrast sensitivity at soft drusen in early age-related macular degeneration using fine-detail perimetry. Poster presented at the 2012 Annual Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Meeting. 4-10 May.
  • Benson NC, Butt OH, Datta R, Brainard DH, Aguirre GK (2011) A universal retinotopic mapping of V1 with respect to anatomy. Poster presented at the 11th Annual Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Meeting. 11-16 May.
  • Butt OH, Benson NC, Datta R, Brainard DH, Aguirre GK (2011) Multi-focal and phase-encoded retinotopy compared. Poster presented at the 11th Annual Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Meeting. 11-16 May.
  • Benson NC, Daggett V (2010) Determining the molecular basis of disease in single nucleotide polymorphism variants using wavelet analysis. Poster presented at the 54th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting. 20-24 Feb.

Extracurricular

  • Graduate and Professional Student Senate
    • Executive Committee Member, summer 2008
    • Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender minority senator 2007-2009
  • Faculty Senate Committee on Planning and Budgeting, student member, 2009
  • Student Visit Day Coordinator, Biomedical and Health Informatics, 2006-2008
  • Admissions Committee Student Member, Biomedical and Health Informatics, 2009
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Suite 328C
3401 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Phone: 215-898-7300
Fax: 215-898-7301
email: nbe@sas.upenn.edu