Philip Low (inventor)

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Philip Steven Low
Philip Low.jpg
Born
Vienna, Austria
Citizenship Canada
Education Ph.D., UCSD
B.Sc., University of Chicago
Occupation Scientist
Known for Animal consciousness
iBrain inventor
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsNeurovigil, Inc
Philip Low Foundation
Thesis A New Way To Look At Sleep : Separation & Convergence  (2007)
Doctoral advisors Terry Sejnowski
Fred Gage
Website neurovigil.com

Philip S. Low is a Canadian inventor, computational neuroscientist, mathematician, and industrialist. He is the chairman, CEO and founder of NeuroVigil, a neurotechnology company.

Contents

Early life and education

Philip Low was born in Vienna, Austria. [1] After completing his primary schooling at Cours Hattemer in Paris in 1991, Low attended Institut Le Rosey, one of the oldest private boarding schools in Switzerland, where he graduated in 1996 with a specialization in Mathematics. [2]

Father

Low's father, Steven Low [3] : xxi  (born Seweryn Lwów in Lviv on May 26, 1932) [4] was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, who came to Canada after the war. [5] [6] According to Low, he became interested in the fragility of the human brain as a child when his father overdosed on a sleep drug and threatened a person with a weapon. [7]

Tertiary education

Low received his B.Sc. in pure mathematics from the University of Chicago, during which he spent a summer research internship at Harvard Medical School. [8] [9]

Low went on to earn a Ph.D. in computational neurobiology from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) [9] [10] for work done at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, which he joined at the recommendation of Francis Crick. At Salk, Low developed Dynamic Spectral Scoring (DSS) and the SPEARS (Sleep Parametric EEG Automated Recognition System) algorithm, which is used to map brain waves. [10] [11] Low presented the algorithm as his doctoral dissertation, the body of which he says was one page long. [9] [a]

Career

In 2007, Low founded NeuroVigil, a neurotechnology company that manufactures a brain monitoring device inspired by his doctoral research. [10] [11] In 2012, Low published — with Christof Koch and David Edelman — the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which asserts that "humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness" and that non-human life may also possess consciousness. [13] He also collaborated with Stephen Hawking who provided him with data for his non-invasive iBrain monitor to interpret brain waves to decipher human intentions and enable communication. [10] [11]

Low was named to the 2010 edition of MIT Technology Review's "35 Under 35" list of young innovators. [11]

Personal life

Low is a Canadian citizen and an EB-1 visa resident of the United States; he lives in La Jolla, California. [1] [14] He enjoys running, skiing, and chess. [1]

Works

Doctoral dissertation

Notes

  1. ↑ A member of Low's review committee recalled a longer submission. [9] The version archived at UCSD is 346 pages long. [12]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "San Diego phenom named top innovator". San Diego Union-Tribune . August 31, 2016. Retrieved February 7, 2025.
  2. ↑ "Curriculum Vitae: Philip S. Low" (PDF). Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Retrieved February 2, 2025.
  3. ↑ Low, Philip S. (2007). A New Way To Look At Sleep : Separation & Convergence . Retrieved February 2, 2025.
  4. ↑ "Poland, Jewish Holocaust Survivors Registered in Warsaw, 1945-1946 (USHMM) [database on-line]". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. February 26, 2025.
  5. ↑ "Steven Low Obituary". Legacy. May 30, 2024.
  6. ↑ Janssens, Emily (November 13, 2024). "Honouring the needs of Indigenous communities - The Steven Low Foundation aims to bring healing and hope through a gift to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation". UM News. University of Manitoba. Retrieved February 8, 2025.
  7. ↑ Low, Philip (July 13, 2019). Simulation #485 Dr. Philip Low - New Paradigm for Brain Research. Event occurs at 4:30. Retrieved February 7, 2025.
  8. ↑ Recchie, Benjamin (Winter 2011). "Mind Reader". The Core: College Magazine of the University of Chicago. University of Chicago . Retrieved February 7, 2025.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Grens, Kerry (December 31, 2012). "Philip Low: Sleep Analyzer". The Scientist . Archived from the original on February 7, 2025.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Duncan, David Ewing (April 2, 2012). "A Little Device That's Trying to Read Your Thoughts". The New York Times . Retrieved February 7, 2025.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Rice, Jocelyn (April 25, 2010). "Philip Low". MIT Technology Review . Retrieved February 7, 2025.
  12. ↑ Low, Philip (2007). A new way to look at sleep : separation & convergence (Ph.D. thesis). University of California, San Diego.
  13. ↑ Bekoff, Marc (September 19, 2012). "Animals are conscious and should be treated as such". New Scientist . Retrieved February 7, 2025. The upshot of the meeting was the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which was publicly proclaimed by three eminent neuroscientists, David Edelman of the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California, Philip Low of Stanford University and Christof Koch of the California Institute of Technology.
  14. ↑ "Canada Joins Philip Low's NeuroVigil Conglomerate". BusinessWire (Press release). 2020. Retrieved February 7, 2025.

Further reading

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