Warren Sturgis McCulloch | |
---|---|
Born | November 16, 1898 Orange, New Jersey |
Died | September 24, 1969 (aged 70) Cambridge, Massachusetts |
Citizenship | United States |
Nationality | United States |
Fields |
Cybernetics Artificial neural network Neuropsychology Biophysics Computer Science |
Institutions |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Yale University University of Illinois at Chicago University of Chicago |
Alma mater |
Yale University Columbia University |
Notable students | Stafford Beer |
Notable awards | Wiener Gold Medal (1968) |
Warren Sturgis McCulloch (November 16, 1898 – September 24, 1969) was an American neurophysiologist and cybernetician, known for his work on the foundation for certain brain theories and his contribution to the cybernetics movement. Along with Walter Pitts, McCulloch created computational models based on mathematical algorithms called threshold logic which split the inquiry into two distinct approaches, one approach focused on biological processes in the brain and the other focused on the application of neural networks to artificial intelligence.
Warren Sturgis McCulloch was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1898. He attended Haverford and studied philosophy and psychology at Yale University, where he received an A.B. degree in 1921. He continued to study psychology at Columbia and received a M.A. degree in 1923. Receiving his MD in 1927 from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, he undertook an internship at Bellevue Hospital, New York, before returning to academia in 1934. He worked at the Laboratory for Neurophysiology at Yale University from 1934 to 1941, before moving to the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
From 1952 he worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Norbert Wiener. He also worked at Yale University and later at the University of Chicago. He was a founding member of the American Society for Cybernetics and its second president during 1967–1968. He was a mentor to the British operations research pioneer Stafford Beer.