Marcelo Magnasco

Marcelo Osvaldo Magnasco

Current Position:	Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience
Current Address:	The Rockefeller University,   1230 York Avenue   New York, NY 10065, U.S.A.
Telephone:	(212) 327 8542 (w) 7422  (f)
Email:	mgnsclb at rockefeller.edu
ORCID	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4870-2234

Education

March 1992	The University of Chicago: Ph.D. (Physics) Thesis: Structure and Evolution of Cellular Patterns  Advisor: Prof. Leo P. Kadanoff
August 1989	The University of Chicago: M.Sc. (Physics)
March 1987	University of La Plata: Licenciado en Fisica

Employment

Aug 2003-		Professor and Head of Lab,  Rockefeller University
Jul 2002-Jul 2003		Research Scientist, Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, UNESCO Trieste, Italy. (On sabbatical leave of absence from RU)
Jan 1999-Jul 2003		Associate Professor and Head of Lab   Rockefeller University
Dec 1993-  Dec 1998		Assistant Professor and Head of Lab,  Rockefeller University
Jan 1992- Dec 1993		Postdoctoral Fellow, Rockefeller University (under M. J. Feigenbaum)  and Visiting Scientist, NEC Research Institute (under A. J. Libchaber and P. A. Wolff)
1991		William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellow (best PhD thesis in the Physical Sciences Division) and  Sydney Bloomenthal Dissertation Fellow (best PhD thesis in the Physics Department)  The University of Chicago
Sep 1988- Dec 1991		Research Assistant, (under L. P. Kadanoff), The James Frank Institute,   Teaching Assistant, Kersten Physics Teaching Center  The University of Chicago .

Theses advised

• Guillermo A. Cecchi, A Brain for Language and the Language of the Brain. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, 1999
• Yong Choe, The role of mechanotransduction in osmoreception and auditory amplification Ph. D.  thesis, Rockefeller University, April 2002. (co-advised; principal advisor Jim Hudspeth)
• Mariano Sigman, How the brain learns and constructs the structure of the world. Ph. D. thesis, Rockefeller University, April 2002 (jointly advised with Charles Gilbert) 
• Timothy Gardner, Vocal Analysis and Learning Mechanisms for Canary Song. Ph. D. thesis, Rockefeller University, Sept 2002
• Maurizio Pellegrino, Structure-Function Analysis of Insect Olfactory Receptors. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, June 2011 (co-advised; principal advisor Leslie Vosshall)
• Thibaud Taillefumier, Sample Path Analysis of Integrate-and-Fire Neurons. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, June 2012
• Jacob N. Oppenheim, High Resolution Maps of the Vasculature of an Entire Organ. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, June 2014
• Akinori Ebihara, Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University (co-advised; principal advisor Winrich Freiwald)
• Matthew Dornfeld, The Physics of Rodent Ultrasonic Vocalizations. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, June 2017
• Keith Hayton, Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University
• Dimitrios Moirogiannis, Center Manifold Dynamics in Randomly Coupled Oscillators and in Cochlea. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, June 2019
• Sean Fisher Woodward, Who Said That? Towards a Machine-Prediction-Based Approach to Tursiops truncatus Whistle Localization and Attribution in a Reverberant Dolphinarium. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, June 2019 (external co-advisor Diana Reiss)
• Frank Tejera Leon, Nonlinear Representation of Auditory Stimuli Across the Auditory Cortex. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, June 2022 (jointly advised with Alipasha Vaziri)
• Eric Angel Ramos, Ph.D. thesis, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (external co-advisor; principal advisor Diana Reiss)
• Brigid Maloney, Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, 2024 (co-advised; principal advisor Erich Jarvis)
• Mason Hargrave, Benchmarking Reinforcement Learning and Off Policy Evaluation for Medical Decision Making. Ph.D. thesis, Rockefeller University, October 2024 (external co-advisor Conor Liston)

Publications

The full list is on Google Scholar.

Recent publications

• M. O. Magnasco. Input-driven circuit reconfiguration in critical recurrent neural networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122 (10), e2418818122 (2025).
• A. Chandra, M. O. Magnasco. Dynamics of convolutional recurrent neural networks near their critical point. Physical Review Research 6 (4), 043152 (2024).
• E. A. Ramos, J. J. Kiszka, D. Reiss, M. O. Magnasco. Coastal dolphins provide foraging opportunities to benthic-feeding seabirds in a tropical seagrass ecosystem. Behaviour 161 (6), 495-503 (2024).
• E. A. Ramos, B. Brady, J. A. Lasala, A. Liebschner, S. Obbink, Z. Walker, et al.. Antillean manatee calves in captive rehabilitation change vocal behavior in anticipation of feeding. Zoo Biology 42 (6), 723-729 (2023).
• J. D. Reyes-Arias, B. Brady, E. A. Ramos, Y. Henaut, et al.. Vocalizations of wild West Indian manatee vary across subspecies and geographic location. Scientific Reports 13 (1), 11028 (2023).
• B. Maloney, E. A. Ramos, C. O. Bennice, F. Young, M. O. Magnasco. Genetic confirmation of Octopus insularis (Leite and Haimovici, 2008) in South Florida, United States using physical features and de novo genome assembly. Frontiers in Physiology 14, 1162807 (2023).
• E. A. Ramos, M. Steinblatt, R. Demsey, D. Reiss, M. O. Magnasco. Abnormal behavioral episodes associated with sleep and quiescence in Octopus insularis: Possible nightmares in a cephalopod? bioRxiv 2023.05.11.540348 (2023).
• M. O. Magnasco. Convolutional unitary or orthogonal recurrent neural networks. arXiv:2302.07396 (2023).
• M. O. Magnasco. Robustness and flexibility of neural function through dynamical criticality. Entropy 24 (5), 591 (2022).
• J. Meyer, M. O. Magnasco, D. Reiss. The relevance of human whistled languages for the analysis and decoding of dolphin communication. Frontiers in Psychology 12, 689501 (2021).
• A. Babino, M. O. Magnasco. Masks and distancing during COVID-19: A causal framework for imputing value to public-health interventions. Scientific Reports 11 (1), 5183 (2021).
• S. F. Woodward, D. Reiss, M. O. Magnasco. Learning to localize sounds in a highly reverberant environment: Machine-learning tracking of dolphin whistle-like sounds in a pool. PLoS ONE 15 (6), e0235155 (2020).

Most cited

The 25 most cited papers, with citation counts as of November 2026:

1. M. O. Magnasco. Forced thermal ratchets. Physical Review Letters 71 (10), 1477 (1993). Cited by 1659.
2. C. Bushdid, M. O. Magnasco, L. B. Vosshall, A. Keller. Humans can discriminate more than 1 trillion olfactory stimuli. Science 343 (6177), 1370-1372 (2014). Cited by 1430.
3. E. Yang, E. van Nimwegen, M. Zavolan, N. Rajewsky, M. Schroeder, et al.. Decay rates of human mRNAs: correlation with functional characteristics and sequence attributes. Genome Research 13 (8), 1863-1872 (2003). Cited by 846.
4. V. M. Eguíluz, M. Ospeck, Y. Choe, A. J. Hudspeth, M. O. Magnasco. Essential nonlinearities in hearing. Physical Review Letters 84 (22), 5232 (2000). Cited by 556.
5. M. P. Rout, J. D. Aitchison, M. O. Magnasco, B. T. Chait. Virtual gating and nuclear transport: the hole picture. Trends in Cell Biology 13 (12), 622-628 (2003). Cited by 525.
6. A. Ott, M. Magnasco, A. Simon, A. Libchaber. Measurement of the persistence length of polymerized actin using fluorescence microscopy. Physical Review E 48 (3), R1642 (1993). Cited by 502.
7. E. Katifori, G. J. Szöllősi, M. O. Magnasco. Damage and fluctuations induce loops in optimal transport networks. Physical Review Letters 104 (4), 048704 (2010). Cited by 484.
8. M. Sigman, G. A. Cecchi, C. D. Gilbert, M. O. Magnasco. On a common circle: natural scenes and Gestalt rules. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98 (4), 1935-1940 (2001). Cited by 421.
9. F. Naef, M. O. Magnasco. Solving the riddle of the bright mismatches: labeling and effective binding in oligonucleotide arrays. Physical Review E 68 (1), 011906 (2003). Cited by 286.
10. Y. Choe, M. O. Magnasco, A. J. Hudspeth. A model for amplification of hair-bundle motion by cyclical binding of Ca²⁺ to mechanoelectrical-transduction channels. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95 (26), 15321-15326 (1998). Cited by 279.
11. M. O. Magnasco. Molecular combustion motors. Physical Review Letters 72 (16), 2656 (1994). Cited by 264.
12. D. Hekstra, A. R. Taussig, M. Magnasco, F. Naef. Absolute mRNA concentrations from sequence-specific calibration of oligonucleotide arrays. Nucleic Acids Research 31 (7), 1962-1968 (2003). Cited by 222.
13. S. Ribeiro, G. A. Cecchi, M. O. Magnasco, C. V. Mello. Toward a song code: evidence for a syllabic representation in the canary brain. Neuron 21 (2), 359-371 (1998). Cited by 196.
14. S. Bohn, M. O. Magnasco. Structure, scaling, and phase transition in the optimal transport network. Physical Review Letters 98 (8), 088702 (2007). Cited by 194.
15. T. Gardner, G. Cecchi, M. Magnasco, R. Laje, G. B. Mindlin. Simple motor gestures for birdsongs. Physical Review Letters 87 (20), 208101 (2001). Cited by 183.
16. M. O. Magnasco. Chemical kinetics is Turing universal. Physical Review Letters 78 (6), 1190 (1997). Cited by 177.
17. F. Naef, D. A. Lim, N. Patil, M. Magnasco. DNA hybridization to mismatched templates: a chip study. Physical Review E 65 (4), 040902 (2002). Cited by 170.
18. T. J. Gardner, M. O. Magnasco. Sparse time-frequency representations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103 (16), 6094-6099 (2006). Cited by 161.
19. G. A. Cecchi, L. T. Petreanu, A. Alvarez-Buylla, M. O. Magnasco. Unsupervised learning and adaptation in a model of adult neurogenesis. Journal of Computational Neuroscience 11 (2), 175-182 (2001). Cited by 150.
20. G. Solovey, L. M. Alonso, T. Yanagawa, N. Fujii, M. O. Magnasco, G. A. Cecchi, et al.. Loss of consciousness is associated with stabilization of cortical activity. The Journal of Neuroscience 35 (30), 10866-10877 (2015). Cited by 143.
21. A. Zilman, S. Di Talia, B. T. Chait, M. P. Rout, M. O. Magnasco. Efficiency, selectivity, and robustness of nucleocytoplasmic transport. PLoS Computational Biology 3 (7), e125 (2007). Cited by 143.
22. J. Yan, M. O. Magnasco, J. F. Marko. A kinetic proofreading mechanism for disentanglement of DNA by topoisomerases. Nature 401 (6756), 932-935 (1999). Cited by 142.
23. E. A. Ramos, B. Maloney, M. O. Magnasco, D. Reiss. Bottlenose dolphins and Antillean manatees respond to small multi-rotor unmanned aerial systems. Frontiers in Marine Science 5, 316 (2018). Cited by 129.
24. M. O. Magnasco, O. Piro, G. A. Cecchi. Self-tuned critical anti-Hebbian networks. Physical Review Letters 102 (25), 258102 (2009). Cited by 127.
25. E. Katifori, M. O. Magnasco. Quantifying loopy network architectures. PLoS ONE 7 (6), e37994 (2012). Cited by 108.