Ali Minai Awards Committee Chair, Governor-at-Large (2021-2023) University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Topics of Research: neural networks, computational neuroscience, computational models of cognition and action, social networks, multi-agent systems, text analysis, and self-organized networks

ALI A. MINAI served as President of the International Neural Network Society in 2015-16, and is currently a member at-large of the INNS Board of Governors. He has previously served as the INNS Vice-President for Conferences (2012-2014), Secretary (2006-2010), and member of the Board of Governors (2010-2014). He was also General Chair of IJCNN 2011 in San Jose, CA. He served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems from 2016 to 2021. and as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks from 2001 to 2008. He is currently an Action Editor for Neural Networks. He has served on the editorial boards of the journals Cognitive Systems Research and Complexity, and as Series Editor for the Springer-NECSI Series on Complex Systems. He was a member of the IEEE-CIS Neural Networks Technical Committee in 2004-2005 and again from 2010 to 2017. He has served on the Executive Committee for the International Conference on Complex Systems from 2000 to 2011, helping to organize six high-profile conferences, and was General Chair for the 2011, 2018, and 2020 conferences. He was Workshops Chair for IJCNN 2007, Tutorials Chair for IJCNN 2009, and Workshops Chair for IJCNN 2020. He has served on the program committees of several other international conferences, including ICANN 2009. Dr. Minai is co-editor of ten books in the area of complex systems, including Complex Engineered Systems: Science Meets Technology (Springer, 2006); Conflict and Complexity: Countering Terrorism, Insurgency, Ethnic and Regional Violence (Springer, 2015); and Creativity and Innovation: Cognitive, Social and Computational Approaches (2021). He has also served on several National Science Foundation review panels.

Dr. Minai received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia in 1991, with a dissertation on the robustness of feed-forward neural networks. From 1991-93, he was a post-doctoral research associate in the laboratory of Prof. William B. Levy at the University of Virginia, working on computational models of the hippocampus. In 1993, he joined the University of Cincinnati, where he is currently Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Director of the Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory. He is also a faculty member of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Minai’s research interests include neural networks, computational neuroscience, computational models of cognition and action, social networks, multi-agent systems, text analysis, and self-organized networks. His research is motivated by a unified view of complex adaptive systems ranging from brains to human societies, and he has worked to apply the broad principles of self-organization, nonlinear dynamics and complex networks to many systems. Dr. Minai’s current research looks at language models, text analysis, the neural basis of thought and action, collective learning in social networks, analysis of stereo EEG brain recordings, and bio-inspired models of navigation. His research has been published in many prominent journals, including Neural Networks, Neural Computation, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Neurocomputing, Biological Cybernetics, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review E, Physical D, Frontiers in Neuroscience, Frontiers in Psychology, Complexity, and Annual Reviews of Neuroscience. Dr. Minai’s work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the US Air Force. He was the principal investigator for a $1 million 2012 INSPIRE award from the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Minai is a senior member of the IEEE, and the International Neural Network Society, and a member of the AAAS, the Society for Neuroscience, Eta Kappa Nu, and Tau Beta Pi.