Sebastian Seung

H. Sebastian Seung
CitizenshipAmerican
EducationHarvard University (B.A., PhD)
Hebrew University of Jerusalem (PostDoc)
Known forConnectome theory
Non-negative matrix factorization
Corporate President of Samsung Electronics
Head of Samsung Research
Children3 daughters
AwardsSloan Fellowship
Scientific career
FieldsNeuroscience
physics
InstitutionsPrinceton University
MIT
Bell Labs
Thesis Physics of Lines and Surfaces  (1990)
Doctoral advisorDavid Robert Nelson
Korean name
Hangul
승현준
Hanja
Revised RomanizationSeung Hyeonjun
McCune–ReischauerSŭng Hyŏnchun
Websitehttp://seunglab.org/

Hyunjune Sebastian Seung (English: /sung/ or [səŋ]; Korean승현준; Hanja承現峻)[1][2] is President at Samsung Electronics & Head of Samsung Research and Anthony B. Evnin Professor in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Computer Science. Seung has done influential research in both computer science and neuroscience.[3] He has helped pioneer the new field of connectomics, "developing new computational technologies for mapping the connections between neurons," and has been described as the cartographer of the brain.[4][5]

Since 2014, he has been a professor in computer science and neuroscience at Princeton University's Neuroscience Institute at the Jeff Bezos Center in Neural Dynamics, where he directs the Seung Labs.[6] Before, he worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a full professor in computational neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and as a professor in physics.

In the industry, he was a research scientist at the Bell Labs and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.[7] Since 2015, he has joined the board of advisors for Nara Logics, an MIT-based startup specializing in brain research and big data.[8] Since 2018, he was hired as the Chief Research Scientist at Samsung.[9][10]

He is most well known as a proponent of connectomics through his Ted talk "I am my Connectome" and his book Connectome which was named top 10 nonfiction books of the year 2012 by the Wall Street Journal and has been translated into dozens of languages.[11]

He has also founded EyeWire, an online computer game that mobilizes social computing and machine learning on a mission to map the human brain. It has attracted hundreds of thousands of users from over a hundred countries, and it has recently partnered with KT Corporation to help spread the scientific mission and attract more players to the cause.

Seung is also known for his 1999 joint work on non-negative matrix factorization, an important algorithm used in AI and data science.[12]

  1. ^ chosun.com (Korean)
  2. ^ "삼성전자, AI 분야 세계적 석학 '세바스찬 승·다니엘 리' 영입". biz.chosun.com (in Korean). Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  3. ^ "H. Sebastian Seung | Neuroscience". pni.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  4. ^ "Sebastian Seung". edX. 2014-08-12. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  5. ^ Cook, Gareth (2015-01-08). "Sebastian Seung's Quest to Map the Human Brain". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-14.
  6. ^ http://seunglab.org
  7. ^ "H. Sebastian Seung".
  8. ^ "Xconomy: Nara Logics Gets New CEO, Recruits Renowned Neuroscientist". Xconomy. 2015-05-05. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
  9. ^ "World-Renowned AI Scientists, Dr. Sebastian Seung and Dr. Daniel Lee Join Samsung Research". news.samsung.com. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  10. ^ "Samsung hires two world-renowned AI experts". english.donga.com. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  11. ^ "The Best Nonfiction of 2012". Wall Street Journal. 2012-12-14. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  12. ^ H. Sebastian Seung; Lee, Daniel D. (October 1999). "Learning the parts of objects by non-negative matrix factorization". Nature. 401 (6755): 788–791. Bibcode:1999Natur.401..788L. doi:10.1038/44565. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 10548103. S2CID 4428232.