I am a mathematician, computer scientist, and Associate Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. I received my BMath from Waterloo in 1994, my MSc in applied math from UBC in 1996, and my PhD in computing science from SFU in 2003.

Though much of my research career so far has been devoted to medical image processing, my real passion is to understand the brain and how it drives human behaviour. Since childhood, I've been fascinated by how we perceive the world through our senses, and use that knowledge to make decisions. How are memories encoded? And what is consciousness? These are the big questions I want answers to. I use computer simulations of neural networks, and mathematical models in an effort to unravel these mysteries.

Publications

Journal Articles

• P. Michael Furlong, Nicole Sandra-Yaffa Dumont, Rika Antonova, Jeff Orchard, Chris Eliasmith (2026) Compositional neurosymbolic representations enable efficient active exploration. Nature Communications.  Abstract  DOI
• Nicole Sandra-Yaffa Dumont, P. Michael Furlong, Jeff Orchard, Chris Eliasmith (2023) Exploiting semantic information in a spiking neural SLAM system. Frontiers in Neuroscience.  Abstract  PDF  DOI  External link
• Eric Hunsberger, Victor Reyes Osorio, Jeff Orchard, Bryan P Tripp (2017) Feature-Based Resource Allocation for Real-Time Stereo Disparity Estimation. IEEE Access.  Abstract  PDF  DOI  External link

Conference and Workshop Papers

• P Michael Furlong, Katherine Simone, Nicole Dumont, Madeline Bartlett, Terrence C. Stewart, Jeff Orchard, Chris Eliasmith (2024) Biologically-plausible Markov Chain Monte Carlo Sampling from Vector Symbolic Algebra-encoded Distributions. In ICANN.  Abstract  PDF
• Madeline Bartlett, Katherine Simone, Nicole Dumont, P Michael Furlong, Chris Eliasmith, Jeff Orchard, Terrence C. Stewart (2023) Improving Reinforcement Learning with Biologically Motivated Continuous State Representations. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Cognitive Modeling.  Abstract  PDF
• Nicole Sandra-Yaffa Dumont, Jeff Orchard, Chris Eliasmith (2022) A model of path integration that connects neural and symbolic representation. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, volume 44. Toronto, ON. Cognitive Science Society.  Abstract  PDF

Technical Reports and Preprints

• Jeff Orchard, Hao Yang, Xiang Ji (2013) Does the Entorhinal Cortex use the Fourier Transform?. Technical Report, Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience.  Abstract  PDF