writing

> if not god, then what?
> fables for a young skeptic
> the thinker's toolbox
> the glass bead game
> fight dogma, not religion
> neural rhythmicity...

teaching

> beauty and the brain
> cyborg millennium
> einstein's universe

about

> resume / cv

Summary

Dual-identity educator and senior executive. As an educator, innovative interdisciplinarian teaching at the intersection of science, philosophy, and art, with research programs in the neural basis of religious and aesthetic experience, and neurally-grounded philosophy of language. Strong parallel interest in the public understanding of science and critical thinking. As a Chief Technology Officer, 5 years directing IT strategy and operations for international companies, recognized as national thought leader by InfoWorld magazine -- named one of the "Top 25 CTO's of 2004." Areas of expertise include engineering team leadership, software strategy, and process automation.

Academic experience

(Jul 2007 - Present) Assistant Professor, Portland State University

• Taught "Embracing Einstein's Universe." Multi-disciplinary freshman seminar, focusing on key aspects of modern physics (relativity & quantum mechanics).
• Coordinator of outreach program offering college courses in area high schools. Created marketing, managed student admission and program financing.
• Co-taught 253 students with seven high school faculty and one TA.
• Taught "Entering the Cyborg Milennium: Technology and transformation in human society." Topics included neuroprosthetics, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence.

(Mar 2007 - Jun 2007) Field Instructor, Northwest Outdoor Science School

• Designed curriculum and taught animal biology to 6th-grade students in an outdoor field biology setting.
• Emphasized integration of lessons with soil, water, and plant biology.
• Created and supervised recreational / educational activities.

(Sep 2005 - Dec 2005) Visiting Asst. Prof. Neuroscience, Hampshire College

• Taught "Beauty & the Brain: The neurobiology of aesthetic experience." 200-level course in School of Cognitive Science.
• Interdisciplinary content, including neuroscience, philosophy, art, mathematics.
• Readings from Zeki, Santayana, Danto, Ramachandran, many others.
• High demand from students exceeded limit of 25.

• Taught weekly one-on-one sessions with freshman and junior high school students.
• Improved grades from D to B-level. Increased enthusiasm and discipline overall.

(Jan 1995 - Jun 1995) Teaching Assistant, Princeton Univ.
(Sep 1993 - Dec 1993) Teaching Assistant, Princeton Univ.

• Led review and lab sessions for vision and cortical physiology course - Prof. Charles Gross.
• Led review sessions for introductory course "The Brain: A Users Guide" - Prof. Barry Jacobs.
• Graded exams and essays for classes of 25-40 students.

Business experience

(Nov 2004 - Sep 2005) Director, IT Leadership Council, Computerworld

Publisher of weekly enterprise IT newspaper, executive conferences and web services. A division of IDG (International Data Group).

• Founder & Director of new practice: membership organization for CIOs.
• Responsible for concept, sales & marketing, technology, staffing, service delivery, P/L.
• Grew membership to 185+ senior IT executives in three months. Superlative testimonials.
• Organized 30+ moderated teleconferences, face-to-face meetings. Launched CIO Speakers Bureau.
• Delivered web-based groupware site for document sharing, collaboration, discussions.
• Developed strategies for partnership with other councils.

• Directed and implemented international IT strategy. Built strong reputation with Board of Directors.
• Focused development on data integration and seamless interaction between business units.
• Led overhaul of 15-language, 10,000 page website, including RFP and implementation of enterprise-wide content management system.
• Built global LDAP- and XML-based corporate directory consolidating contact and authentication information from 56 companies.
• Developed and deployed custom CRM, deal tracking, and resource availability applications.
• Led strategy for development, upgrade, and marketing of 7000-user international corporate intranet.
• Managed outsourced datacenter through tumultuous market conditions.
• Directed LAN management (data and voice), including local and international remote users.
• Regular communication with US and International Boards of Directors.

• Managed R&D team of 12 over multiple projects, directed product development, built extranet and redesigned corporate website.
• Managed infrastructure team of 8. Built fault-tolerant in-house and outsourced datacenters to support local offices and 200+ clients.
• Managed domestic and foreign patents, including intellectual property strategies and infringement litigation.
• Radically improved software engineering lifecycle, including project management, functional and technical specification writing, and code structure.
• Integrated remote users and offices with VPN and e-mail.
• Provided business advice to CEO and CFO on technical and non-technical matters concerning product direction, client relationship management, risk and crisis management, etc.

• Led high-profile project and a 10-person team to design and implement a real-time financial data streaming application. Received numerous accolades for on-time delivery.
• Built Program Plan for large-scale content management system. Consolidated feature analysis of multiple packages and custom tools.
• Helped design internal knowledge management system.
• Developed on-line business-school application.

Education

(1996 - 1998) Postdoctoral fellow, Neuroscience, Brandeis University

• Research in computational and physiological neuroscience.
• Built multi-electrode recording system for brain slices.
• Administered 20 machine LAN (Unix, Win 95/NT).

• Studied computational models of learning, feedback in autonomous systems.

• Member of Autonomous Vehicles Lab at Naval Ocean Systems Center.

• Wrote two independent studies: computational neuroscience and philosophy of mind.

• Created self-organizing neural network for data analysis.
• Developed code on massively parallel supercomputer.

Awards and recognition

• 2004, InfoWorld magazine - quoted in article on IT bargaining (Feb 16)
• 2004, InfoWorld magazine - named one of "Top 25 CTOs of 2004" (Jan 26)
• 2002, BusinessWeek magazine - work on data integration cited (Mar 18)
• 2001, Real Estate Forum - appeared in cover story, "Power Brokers" (July issue)
• 1997, Sloan Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship
• 1996 - 1997, National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship
• 1995, Princeton University Honorific Fellowship - voted by faculty one of 11 best dissertations
• 1991 - 1994, Office of Naval Research Predoctoral Fellowship
  

Books

• Fost JW (2007) If Not God, Then What? Neuroscience, aesthetics, and the origins of the transcendent. (Salem, OR: Clearhead Studios, Inc.)
• Fost JW (in progress) Fables for a Young Skeptic
• Fost JW (in progress) The Thinker's Toolbox

Refereed articles

• Fost JW (2005) Fight dogma, not religion. Free Inquiry 25(6):56-57.
• Fost JW (2004) Toward the Glass Bead Game - a rhetorical invention. Leonardo 37(3).
• Fost JW (1999) Neural rhythmicity, feature binding, and serotonin: a hypothesis. The Neuroscientist 5: 79-85.
• Varela JA, Sen K, Gibson J, Fost JW, Abbott LF, and Nelson SB (1997) A quantitative description of short-term plasticity at excitatory synapses in layer 2/3 of rat primary visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 17: 7926-7940
• Fost JW (1996) Computational and Physiological Analysis of Neural Plasticity in Hermissenda. PhD thesis, Princeton University.
• Fost JW and Clark GA (1996) Modeling Hermissenda: I. Differential contributions of IA and IC reductions to type-B cell plasticity. Journal of Computational Neuroscience 3: 137-153.
• Fost JW and Clark GA (1996) Modeling Hermissenda: II. Effects of variations in type-B cell excitability, synaptic strength, and network connectivity. Journal of Computational Neuroscience 3: 155-172.

Abstracts

• Fost JW and Clark GA (1996) Contributions of enhanced type-B cell excitability and synaptic strength to inhibition of type-A cells in Hermissenda: A physiological analysis. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts 21: 1403.
• Fost JW and Clark GA (1994) Contributions of enhanced type-B cell excitability and synaptic strength to inhibition of type-A cells in Hermissenda: A computational analysis. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts 20: 230.
• Fost JW and Clark GA (1994) Computational analysis of cellular and circuit learning mechanisms in Hermissenda. Proceedings of Cold Spring Harbor Conference on Learning and Memory.
• Fost JW and Clark GA (1993) Computational analysis of contributions of K+ currents to learning-dependent changes in Hermissenda type-B photoreceptors. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts 19: 580.

Academic talks

• 17-Nov-2007, Portland State Univ., "A return to eugenics?"
• 04-Nov-2006, Louisiana State Univ., "The neuropsychology of religious and aesthetic unification"
• 02-Nov-2006, Western Oregon Univ., "Faith vs. skepticism in environmental ethics"
• 27-Oct-2006, Science Integration Institute, "Neuroscience, free will, and responsibility"
• 25-Oct-2006, Portland State Univ., "Neuroscience, free will, and responsibility"
• 20-Oct-2006, Western Oregon Univ., "The neurobiology of religious experience"
• 08-Dec-2005, Nancy Lurie Marks Foundation, "Serotonin and neural rhythmicity in autism"
• 14-Nov-2004, Hampshire College, "Neural explanations of aesthetic experience"
• 20-Feb-1998, Brandeis Univ., "Neural rhythmicity, feature binding, and serotonin: a hypothesis"
• 19-Feb-1998, Brandeis Univ., "Active filters in dendrites"
• 18-Nov-1997, Brandeis Univ., "LTP in awake mutant mice"
• 29-Aug-1997, Brandeis Univ., "Network models of attentionally-gated learning"
• 19-Nov-1996, Society for Neuroscience, "Contributions of enhanced type-B cell excitability and synaptic strength to inhibition of type-A cells in Hermissenda: a physiological analysis"
• 18-Oct-1996, Brandeis Univ., "Involvement of pre- and post-synaptic mechanisms in posttetanic potentiation at Aplysia synapses"
• 03-May-1996, Princeton Univ., "Computational and physiological analysis of neural plasticity in Hermissenda: from potassium currents to network architecture"
• 23-Apr-1996, Princeton Univ., "Computational and physiological analysis of neural plasticity in Hermissenda"
• 28-Mar-1995, Princeton Univ., "Computational modeling and the biophysics of memory in Hermissenda"
• 15-Mar-1994, Society for Neuroscience, "Contributions of enhanced type-B cell excitability and synaptic strength to inhibition of type-A cells in Hermissenda: a computational analysis"
• 14-Oct-1994, Cold Spring Harbor, "Computational analysis of cellular and circuit learning mechanisms in Hermissenda"
• 09-Apr-1994, Rutgers Univ., "A computational approach to the biological basis of learning and memory in Hermissenda"
• 09-Apr-1993, Society for Neuroscience, "Computational analysis of contributions of K+ currents to learning-dependent changes in Hermissenda type-B photoreceptors"
• 12-Oct-1992, Princeton Univ., "Neuropharmacology and biophysics of GABA receptors"
• 26-Mar-1992, Princeton Univ., "Gene expression and long-term synaptic facilitation"
• 10-Dec-1991, Princeton Univ., "Neural networks and pattern recognition"
• 25-Jul-1990, NASA GSFC, "Using Kohonen networks to find clusters in high-dimensional satellite data"

Invited business talks

• Mar-2004, Seybold-mediated Panel on Content Management
• Sep-2003, Forrester-mediated Panel on Content Management
• Jul-2001, RealComm Forum on Application Integration

idea sketchbook

> colorblind
> probabilistic law
> general relativity
> hybrid cars