Dr Marcelo Montemurro
Senior Lecturer and Staff Tutor in Mathematics and Statistics
School of Mathematics & Statistics
Biography
Professional biography
My academic career has included affiliations with the following institutions (in loose chronological order):
National University of Córdoba (Córdoba, Argentina) – PhD in Theoretical Physics (Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy).
International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy) – Research Fellow (condensed-matter physics)
University of Manchester – Research Fellow and then Lecturer (Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health).
University of Bologna (Bologna, Italy) – Associate Professor (Department of Physics)
The Open University – Senior Lecturer and Staff Tutor (School of Mathematics & Statistics – Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics group)
Research interests
My research interests include:
Condensed-matter and statistical physics: out-of-equilibrium dynamics of spin glasses and ultrathin magnetic systems with competing interactions; dynamics of neural networks and systems with long-range interactions; algorithms for fast Monte Carlo simulations of systems with long-range interactions.
Complex systems: scaling and fractal properties of human language; characterisation of the information content of semantic structures in human language; complex networks; modelling of biological invasions; modelling and quantification of information processing in neural systems; neural coding; measures of complexity based on information theory.
I am also interested in the relationship between information and thermodynamics, both in classical and quantum systems.
Teaching interests
Over the years, I have taught undergraduate courses in a wide range of areas of physics and mathematics, including foundation mathematics, linear algebra, thermodynamics, mechanics, optics, electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. My teaching experience also extends to postgraduate courses in information theory, mathematical modelling in neuroscience, and quantum and statistical mechanics.
Currently, I am a member of the module team for MST374 (Computational Applied Mathematics) and Deputy Chair of the postgraduate module M820 (Calculus of Variations and Advanced Calculus). At advanced undergraduate level, I teach Quantum Mechanics (SM380) and contribute to the physics project course SXP390 (Radiation and Matter).
I have previously contributed to the module teams for MST210 (Mathematical Methods, Models and Modelling) and MST224 (Mathematical Methods), and have taught Electromagnetism (SM381). At postgraduate level, I have also taught SM880 (Quantum and Statistical Mechanics of Matter), which is shared by the MSc in Mathematics and MPhys programmes.
Academic profiles
Publications
Book Chapter
Complexity and Universality in the Long-Range Order of Words (2016)
A Generalization of the Zipf-Mandelbrot Law in Linguistics (2004)
Journal Article
Noise-modulated multistable synapses in a Wilson-Cowan-based model of plasticity (2023)
GABA Modulates Frequency-Dependent Plasticity in Humans (2020)
Pattern separation underpins expectation-modulated memory (2020)
Natural language statistical features of LSTM-generated texts (2019)
Evidence for frequency-dependent cortical plasticity in the human brain (2017)
Bursting Neurons in the Hippocampal Formation Encode Features of LFP Rhythms (2016)
FPGA Hardware Acceleration of Monte Carlo Simulations for the Ising Model (2016)
Cortical Resonance Frequencies Emerge from Network Size and Connectivity (2016)
Coherent oscillations in word-use data from 1700 to 2008 (2016)
Phase-locking of bursting neuronal firing to dominant LFP frequency components (2015)
Thalamic neuron models encode stimulus information by burst-size modulation (2015)
Melanopsin-Driven Light Adaptation in Mouse Vision (2014)
Linking dynamical and functional properties of intrinsically bursting neurons (2013)
Information coding in a laminar computational model of cat primary visual cortex (2013)
Comparing short and long-distance dispersal: Modelling and field case studies (2011)
Universal entropy of word ordering across linguistic families (2011)
Conversion of phase information into a spike-count code by bursting neurons (2010)
Towards the quantification of the semantic information encoded in written language (2010)
The statistics of meaning: Darwin, Gibbon and Moby Dick (2009)
Phase-of-Firing Coding of Natural Visual Stimuli in Primary Visual Cortex (2008)
Diverse and Temporally Precise Kinetic Feature Selectivity in the VPm Thalamic Nucleus (2008)
Diverse and Temporally Precise Kinetic Feature Selectivity in the VPm Thalamic Nucleus (2008)
Role of precise spike timing in coding of dynamic vibrissa stimuli in somatosensory thalamus (2007)
Correcting for the sampling bias problem in spike train information measures (2007)
Long range dispersal and spatial pattern formation in biological invasions (2006)
Aging and coarsening in an ultra-thin film model (2006)
Optimal tuning widths in population coding of periodic variables (2006)
Stimulus specificity of cortico-cortical connections optimizes information transmission (2006)
Dynamics of Text Generation with Realistic Zipf's Distribution (2005)
A note on non-thermodynamical applications of non-extensive statistics (2004)
Slow dynamics in a two-dimensional Ising model with competing interactions (2003)
Aging dynamics of Edwards-Anderson spin glasses (2003)
Aging in an infinite-range Hamiltonian system of coupled rotators (2003)
Dynamics and nonequilibrium states in the Hamiltonian mean-field model: A closer look (2003)
Aging in a one-dimensional Edwards-Anderson spin-glass model with long-range interactions (2003)
Long-range fractal correlations in literary corpora (2002)
Entropic analysis of the role of words in literary texts (2002)
Beyond the Zipf-Mandelbrot law in quantitative linguistics (2001)
Aging in the retrieval phase of the Hopfield model (2001)
An efficient dilution strategy for constructing sparsely connected neural networks (2001)
Out-of-equilibrium dynamics of the Hopfield model in its spin-glass phase (2000)
