Brief Bio

Carina Curto is a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Brain Science at Brown University. She received an A.B. in Physics from Harvard University in 2000 and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Duke University in 2005. During her postdoctoral years at Rutgers and NYU, she transitioned to research in theoretical and computational neuroscience. Before moving to Brown, Curto was an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2009-2014) and a professor of mathematics at Penn State University (2014-2024). Her research focuses on theory and analysis of neural networks and neural codes, motivated by questions of learning, memory, and sequence generation in cortical and hippocampal circuits. Curto's work uses and develops tools in applied algebra, geometry, topology, and dynamical systems. Her honors include a Sloan Research Fellowship (2011), a Woodrow Wilson Career Enhancement Fellowship (2012), a Simons Fellowship (2021), and a Faculty Scholar Medal (2020), in addition to numerous NSF and NIH research awards.