Summary

Future Technical Leader, Northrop Grumman Lead Developer, onAir Networks and Virginia Elections Hub PhD, Neuroscience, George Mason University

Information

Website: tgillette.onair.cc/

Email: todd@onair.cc

Biography

BS Engineering and Computer Science, Swarthmore (1999-2003)
PhD Neuroscience, George Mason University (2006-2015)

Neuroscience Research Assistant with extensive experience in software development, data management, statistics, data visualization, and bioinformatics. Current research involves bioinformatic pattern searching applied to neuronal morphology. Future aim is to study neuronal networks and their specific information processing roles and capabilities. Interests also include science policy and educational outreach.

Todd studied Engineering and Computer Science at Swarthmore College, graduating in 2003, after which he moved to Virginia to work in IT (specifically knowledge managements systems) with Vivakos Inc until 2006. He then entered the Neuroscience PhD Program at George Mason University with a 2-year fellowship from Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. After the fellowship was over Todd became a Graduate Research Assistant under Dr. Giorgio Ascoli at Krasnow’s Center for Neural Informatics, Neural Structures, and Neural Plasticity (CN3) of Giorgio Ascoli where he has worked on several projects and is now working on completing his dissertation. He spent a semester working with Dr. Ted Dumas and helping publish a paper on gene therapy in addressing stress.

Research

My work centered on neuronal morphology, with a focus in data mining and pattern analysis to determine distinct topological features (i.e. branching patterns) of various neuronal types. Some of my non open access articles can be requested and automatically delivered via my lab’s publications page.

Publications

• Gillette TA, Ascoli GA (2015) Topological characterization of neuronal arbor morphology via sequence representation: I – Motif analysis. BMC Bioinformatics, 16.
• Gillette TA, Hosseini P, Ascoli GA (2015) Topological characterization of neuronal arbor morphology via sequence representation: II – Global alignment. BMC Bioinformatics, 16.
• Gillette TA, Brown KM, Ascoli GA. The DIADEM Metric: Comparing multiple reconstructions of the same neuron. Neuroinformatics, 9:233-45 (2011).
• Gillette TA, Ascoli GA. Measuring and Modeling Morphology: How Dendrites Take Shape. In Le Novere N. (Ed.), “Computational Systems Neurobiology”, pp. 387-428, Springer (2012).
• Theodore C Dumas, Todd A Gillette, Deveroux Ferguson et al. (2010) Anti-glucocorticoid gene therapy reverses the impairing effects of elevated corticosterone on spatial memory, hippocampal neuronal excitability, and synaptic plasticity, 1712-1720. In Journal of Neuroscience 30 (5).
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20…
• Todd A Gillette, John J Grefenstette (2009) On Comparing Neuronal Morphologies with the Constrained Tree-edit-distance, 191-194. In Neuroinformatics 7 (3).
  http://link.springer.com/article/10.1…
• Kerry M Brown, Todd A Gillette, Giorgio A Ascoli (2008) Quantifying neuronal size: summing up trees and splitting the branch difference, 485-493. In Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology 19 (6).
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18…

Other Projects

• Assisted technically in the art sculpture project Mental Floss, producing a virtual model and assisting with the projects underlying data
• Researched at University of Central Florida’s Center for Research in Computer Vision (in 2002 as part of an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates)

Activities and Societies

• GMU Graduate and Professional Student Association (GAPSA) delegate for Neuroscience (2009-2012)
• Neuroscience Graduate Student Organization (president 2010-2011)
• Society for Neuroscience – Student Member (2007-present)