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Cynthia F. Moss

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Cynthia F. Moss
Professor
Born
Columbus, Ohio
Occupation(s)Professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences, Neuroscience, and Mechanical Engineering
SpouseDonald Berger
ChildrenNatalie Louise, Jackson Raymond and Peter Ethan
Parent(s)Howard A. and Adrienne H. Moss
Academic background
EducationB.S., Summa cum laude University of Massachusetts Ph.D., Brown University
Alma materBrown University
ThesisHearing sensitivity and frequency selectivity in the green treefrog, Hyla cinerea (1986)
Doctoral advisorAndrea Megela Simmons
Academic work
DisciplineNeuroscientist
Sub-disciplineSensory information processing and adaptive motor control
Institutions
  • 1987-1988: Research Fellow, Brown University
  • 1989-1994: Assistant Professor, Harvard
  • 1994-1995: Morris Kahn Associate Professor of Psychology, Harvard
  • 1995-2014: Professor, University of Maryland
  • Since 2014: Professor of Psychology, Johns Hopkins University

Cynthia F. Moss is an American neuroscientist and Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, with joint appointments in the Departments of Neuroscience and Mechanical Engineering. Moss is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Acoustical Society of America, and the International Society for Neuroethology. Her research focuses on the mechanisms of sensory-motor integration, scene perception, spatial attention, and spatial memory.

Early life and education

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Born in Columbus, Ohio,[1] Moss is the daughter of Howard A. Moss and Adrienne H. Moss. Her brother Randolph Moss[2] is a judge in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Her brother Eric Moss is Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer of the Bank of Montreal.[3]

Moss graduated with a B.S. (Summa cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and earned a Ph.D. from Brown University.[4] After earning her graduate degree, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and later a Research Fellow at Brown University.[5]

Research and career

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In 1989 Moss joined the faculty of Harvard University as an assistant professor. She became the Morris Kahn Associate Professor in 1994.[6]

Moss accepted a professorship in 1995 at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Systems Research. During her tenure at UMCP, she was Director of the interdepartmental graduate program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science.[5] She was named a professor emerita UMCP .[7]

In 2014, Moss joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University as Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences.[8] She holds appointments in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Whiting School of Engineering, and the School of Medicine.[9]

Moss's research seeks to understand the brain's representation of dynamic sensory information in the natural environment. Her research program uses the active sensing system of echolocating bats, gaining access to the sensory information these animals use to guide their behaviors.[10][11][12]

Echolocating bats produce high frequency sounds and extract information carried by echo returns to guide natural behaviors. Moss's lab group pioneered the use of synchronized high-speed video and microphone array recordings to quantify the bat's coordinated echolocation and flight behavior during target tracking and discrimination, obstacle avoidance, social interactions, and navigation.[13][14]

Moss's research uses modern neuroscience tools to discover mechanisms of auditory scene analysis, spatial memory and navigation, representing stimulus space and orienting behaviors, sensorimotor transformations, object distance perception and tactile sensing.[15][16]

Selected publications

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Cynthia Moss with big brown bat

Articles

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  • Schnitzler, Hans-Ulrich; Moss, Cynthia F.; Denzinger, Annette (August 2003). "From spatial orientation to food acquisition in echolocating bats". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 18 (8): 386–394. doi:10.1016/S0169-5347(03)00185-X.

Books

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  • Moss, C. F., & Shettleworth, S. J. (Eds.). (1996). Neuroethological studies of cognitive and perceptual processes. Westview Press. ISBN 978-0367317003
  • Thomas, J. A., Moss, C. F., & Vater, M. (Eds.). (2002). Echolocation in Bats and Dolphins. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226795980

Awards and honors

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References

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  1. ^ Moss, Cynthia F. (2001). "It Was a Bat Year" (PDF). Wissenschaftskolleg Jahrbuch Arbeitsberichte: 128–130.
  2. ^ "Confirmation Hearings on Federal Appointments". www.govinfo.gov. Retrieved 2024-09-01.
  3. ^ "Bank of Montreal - 2019 Innovatio Award winner - 2019 Innovatio Awards: Company-wide leadership | Canadian Lawyer". www.canadianlawyermag.com. Retrieved 2024-09-06.
  4. ^ "Theses and Dissertations, Brown University Library". library.brown.edu. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
  5. ^ a b c d "Episode 26: Cynthia Moss, PhD". Conjugate: Illustration and Science Blog. Retrieved 2024-04-24.
  6. ^ "Phi Beta Kappa - Cynthia Moss". www.pbk.org. Retrieved 2024-04-29.
  7. ^ "Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program". Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
  8. ^ a b c d "Cynthia F. Moss, PBS faculty". Johns Hopkins Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. 30 November 2015.
  9. ^ a b "Cynthia Moss". Psychological & Brain Sciences. 2015-11-30. Retrieved 2024-04-24.
  10. ^ Hopkins, Jill Rosen-Johns (2018-04-11). "Scientists see neurons fire in brain of flying bat". Futurity. Retrieved 2024-08-06.
  11. ^ "How bats 'see' their world". The Washington Times. 2007-05-09.
  12. ^ Horowitz, Kate (2016-09-15). "Hunting Bats Tilt Their Heads Like Puppies". Mental Floss. Retrieved 2024-08-06.
  13. ^ Moss, Cynthia F. (October 2021). "Cynthia F. Moss". Current Biology. 31 (20): R1365–R1366. Bibcode:2021CBio...31R1365M. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.09.033. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 34699793.
  14. ^ "News - Video - Cynthia Moss talks about how bats use echoes to picture and remember environments. | NSF - National Science Foundation". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
  15. ^ Kirk, Will (2024-04-11). "OneNeuro Profile: Cynthia Moss". OneNeuro Initiative. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
  16. ^ Rosen, Jill (2017-08-09). "Johns Hopkins team gets $1M grant to explore intricacies of bat navigation". The Hub. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
  17. ^ "Thomas, Sir Keith (Vivian), (born 2 Jan. 1933), Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, 1955–57 and 2001–15, now Hon. Fellow; President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1986–2000 (Hon. Fellow, 2000)", Who's Who, Oxford University Press, 2007-12-01, doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.37411, retrieved 2024-09-04
  18. ^ "Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Cynthia F. Moss". www.wiko-berlin.de. Retrieved 2024-09-04.
  19. ^ a b Raziano, Lauren (2023-11-02). "Using Sound to Navigate the World: Cynthia Moss Explains Echolocation". The Quadrangle. Retrieved 2024-04-29.
  20. ^ "James McKeen Cattell Fund Fellowship Recipients". Association for Psychological Science - APS. Retrieved 2024-08-30.
  21. ^ "Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars 2023-2024". PBK. Retrieved 2024-09-03.
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