
Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
Education
Dr. Smith received a B.S. in Biology and Psychology from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY (1997) and a PhD in Neural Science from New York University (2003).
Academic Positions
- Postdoctoral associate (2007–2010)
- Advisor: Marc Sommer, PhD; University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
- Postdoctoral associate (2003–2007)
- Advisor: Tai Sing Lee, PhD; Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
- Graduate assistant (1997–2003)
- Advisor: J Anthony Movshon, PhD; New York University, New York, NY
Recent Honors & Awards
- NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award (EY018894, 2009–present)
- NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (EY015958, 2004–2007)
- NYU Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship (2001–2002)
- Honorable Mention - NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (1998)
- Canisius College Psychology Department Student of the Year Award (1996–1997)
- Hearst Foundation Research Assistantship (1995–1997)
- Hughes Foundation Research Assistantship (1994–1995)
- Alpha Sigma Nu, Psi Chi, and Beta Beta Beta National Honor Societies
Selected Publications
Research Reports
- Jia X, Smith MA, Kohn A (2011) Flexible relationship between gamma components of the local field potential and spiking activity.
- Smith MA, Kohn A (2011) Laminar dependence of neuronal correlation in macaque V1. In preparation.
- Smith MA, Kiorpes L, Movshon JA (2011) Analysis of functional circuitry in primary visual cortex of amblyopic macaque monkeys. In preparation.
- Kelly RC, Smith MA, Kass RE, Lee TS (2010) Accounting for network effects in neuronal responses using L1 penalized point process models. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 22.
- Kelly RC, Smith MA, Kass RE, Lee TS (2010) Local field potentials indicate network state and account for neuronal response variability. J Comp Neurosci, 29: 567–579
- Churchland MM, Yu BM, Cunningham JP, Sugrue LP, Cohen MR, Corrado GS, Newsome WT,Clark AM, Hosseini P, Scott BB, Bradley DC, Smith MA, Kohn A, Movshon JA, Armstrong KM, Moore T, Chang SW, Snyder LH, Lisberger SG, Priebe NJ, Finn IM, Ferster D, Ryu SI, Santhanam G, Sahani M, and Shenoy KV (2010) Stimulus onset quenches neural variability: a widespread cortical phenomenon. Nat Neurosci, 13: 369–378
- Smith MA, Kohn A (2008) Spatial and temporal scales of neuronal correlation in primary visualcortex. J Neurosci, 28: 12591–12603
- Smith MA, Kelly RC, Lee TS (2007) Dynamics of response to perceptual pop-out stimuli inmacaque V1. J Neurophysiol, 98: 3436–3449
- Montani F, Kohn A, Smith MA, Schultz S (2007) The role of correlations in direction and contrast coding in the primary visual cortex. J Neurosci, 27: 2338–2348
- Smith MA, Kohn A, Movshon JA (2007) Glass pattern responses in macaque V2 neurons. J Vis,7(3):5, 1-15
- Smith MA, Bair W, Movshon JA (2006) Dynamics of suppression in macaque V1. J Neurosci, 26:4826–4834
- Smith TD, Bhatnagar KP, Burrows AM, Shimp KL, Dennis JC, Smith MA, Maico-Tan L, Morrison EE (2005) The vomeronasal organ of greater bushbabies (Otolemur spp.): Species, sex, and agedifferences. J Neurocytol, 34: 135-147
- Kohn A, Smith MA (2005) Stimulus dependence of neuronal correlation in primary visual cortex ofthe macaque. J Neurosci, 25: 3661–3673
- Smith MA, Majaj N, Movshon JA (2005) Dynamics of motion signaling by neurons in macaquearea MT. Nat Neurosci, 8: 220–228
- Smith MA, Bair W, Movshon JA (2002) Signals in macaque striate cortical neurons that support the perception of Glass patterns. J Neurosci, 22: 8334–8345
- Bair W, Cavanaugh JR, Smith MA, Movshon JA (2002) The timing of response onset and offset in macaque visual neurons. J Neurosci, 22: 3189–3205
- Smith TD, Siegel MI, Bonar CJ, Bhatnagar KP, Mooney MP, Burrows AM, Smith MA, Maico LM(2001) The existence of the vomeronasal organ in postnatal chimpanzees and evidence for its homology to that of humans. J Anat, 198: 77–82
- Noonan M, Smith MA, Sanfilippo MA, Kelleher K, Axelrod S (1998) Sex differences in anterior commissure size in the rat. Brain Res Bull, 45: 101–104
Reviews, Chapters and Letters
- Smith MA, Majaj N, Movshon JA (2010) Dynamics of pattern motion computation. In Dynamics of Visual Motion Processing: Neuronal, Behavioral and Computational Approaches, eds. G Massonand U Ilg. Springer.
- Kohn A, Zandvakili A, Smith MA (2009) Correlations and brain states: from electrophysiology to functional imaging. Curr Opin Neurobiol, 19: 434–438.
- Kelly RC*, Smith MA*, Samonds JM, Kohn A, Bonds AB, Movshon JA, Lee TS (2007) Comparison of recordings from microelectrode arrays and single electrodes in visual cortex. J Neurosci, 27: 261–264 [*contributed equally to this work]
- Smith MA (2006) Surround suppression in the early visual system. J Neurosci, 26: 3624–3625
- Movshon JA, Albright TD, Stoner GR, Majaj N, Smith MA (2003) Cortical responses to visual motion in alert and anesthetized monkeys. Nat Neurosci, 6: 3