Victor Minces
Department of Cognitive Science
University of California, San Diego
Education
University of California, San Diego.
Computational Neurobiology PhD; 2010
University of Buenos Aires.
Studies in Physical Science 1996-2001
Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón. Buenos Aires. 1994-1996
Art and Performance
2022 Science of Music, Art of Sound. Exhibition at Escondido Art Partnership Municipal Gallery.
2021 Premiere for the short documentary “Experiencing Minces, the art of music and the science of sound” by Tiffany Street. Participatory music performance. San Diego, CA.
2021 The science of music and the art of sound. Public presentation at the Church of Music. San Diego, CA.
2019 Gigantic Distributed Musical Instrument. Sound Installation. Youtopia arts and music festival.
2018 The Science of Sound, a Family Concert. San Diego Symphony, director Sameer Patel. Talks and concert series.
Media Coverage
2021- That’s Called Sonification. Bill Mandon. Profile piece at the San Diego Reader. https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2021/mar/31/golden-dreams-called-sonification/
2021- The Art and Science of Music with Victor Minces. Creative conversations. UCTV https://www.uctv.tv/shows/Creative-Conversations-Victor-MInces-37090
2021- Fizzics Education. Science of Sound with Victor Minces. Podcast. https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/podcast/fizzicsed/podcast-science-of-sound-with-victor-minces/
2021- Lab Out Loud. Podcast guest. https://laboutloud.com/?s=minces
2016- Students learn physics through musical sound. CBS8 reportage.
http://www.cbs8.com/Clip/12581982/students-learn-physics-through-musical-sound
2013- Power of Art - BBC reportage. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21661689
2012- Acting role in science divulgation series “Horizontes en Ciencias Naturales, Las Mutaciones”. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2011- El artista y los otros. El Pais, Spain. Newspaper reportage by Elvira Lindo. Elvira Lindo is an award winning writer and journalist. http://elpais.com/diario/2011/05/08/domingo/1304825434_850215.html
2011- Interview with Roger Bingham, The Science Network. http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/international-mind-brain-and-education-society-2011/interview-with-victor-minces
Website and Web Applications
Website: www.listeningtowaves.com Accessed 8,000 per month.
Web applications: www.listeningtowaves.com/sound-exploration Accessed 30,000 times per month.
Funding
2023-2027 Principal Investigator. NSF 22-585 Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers. Using Flow-Based Music Programming to Engage Children in Computer Science. Award amount $1,490,000
2021-2025 Principal Investigtor. NSF 19-583 Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) id 2048930. Increasing Students' Interest in STEM through the Science of Music. Award amount $1,499,644
2017-2022 Principal Investigator. NSF 15-599, Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) id 1657366. Connecting STEM to Music and the Physics of Sound Waves. Additional funds amount $150,000 for developing a music programming language.
2017-2022 Principal Investigator. NSF 15-599, Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) id 1657366. Connecting STEM to Music and the Physics of Sound Waves. Award amount $1,078,987
Book Chapters
Mullen T., Khalil A., Ward T., Iversen J., Leslie G., Warp R., Withman M., Minces V., McCoy A., Ojeda A., Bigdely-Shamlo N., Chi M., Rosenboom D. (2015). “Mind and Music: Playful and Social Installations at the Interface between Music and the Brain”. In “More Playful Interfaces”. Edited by A. Nijholt. Springer and Business Media, Singapore.
Khalil, Alexander K., Victor Minces, John Iversen, Gabriella Musacchia, Christina Zhao, and Andrea Chiba (2019) “Music, Cognition, and Education.” In The Science of Learning Book, edited by The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and The National Science Foundation.
Appointments
6/2018 – present Assistant Research Scientist. Department of Cognitive Science. University of California, San Diego
6/2016 – 6/2018 Project Scientist. Department of Cognitive Science: Laboratory of Dr. Andrea Chiba. University of California, San Diego
6/2010 – 6/2016 Post-doctoral Researcher. Department of Cognitive Science: Laboratory of Dr. Andrea Chiba. University of California, San Diego
2005-2006 Teaching Assistant. Department of Linguistics; University of California, San Diego.
1/2002-6/2002 Intern. Laboratoire Leibniz Dr. Mirta Gordon - Institut d’Informatique et Mathematiques Appliquees de Grenoble (IMAG) – Grenoble, France
Peer Reviewed Publications
Hazon, O., Minces, V. H., Tomàs, D. P., Ganguli, S., Schnitzer, M. J., & Jercog, P. E. (2022). Noise correlations in neural ensemble activity limit the accuracy of hippocampal spatial representations. Nature Communications, 13(1), 1-13.
Yukyeong Song, Wanli Xing, Alec Barron, Hyunju Oh, Chenglu Li, and Victor Minces. 2023. “M-flow: a Flow-based Music Creation Platform Improves Underrepresented Children’s Attitudes toward Computer Programming”. Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’23), June 19–23, 2023, Chicago, IL, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 6 pages. Best short paper award.
V. H. Minces, W. Xing and C. Li, "Work in Progress: Mflow, a Flow-based Music Programming Platform for Young Children," 2023 IEEE World Engineering Education Conference (EDUNINE), Bogota, Colombia, 2023, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/EDUNINE57531.2023.10102852.
Booker A. and Minces V. (2022), Harmonized Mutual Development through Exploring and Creating Sound. Accepted for publication, proceedings of the International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Minces, V., A. Booker, and A. Khalil (2021). Listening to waves: Engaging underrepresented students through the science of sound and music. Connected Science Learning 3,4
Minces, V. H. (2021), Developing and Popularizing STEM Online Tools: The Case of 'Listening to Waves' Tools for the Science of Music. Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--36938
Akshay, N., Minces, V., Vazhayil, A., Gopalasamy, V., & Bhavani, R. R. (2020). There’s Data all around you : Improving data literacy in high schools through STEAM based activities. Proceedings of Fablearn Asia.
D'Andrea-Penna GM, Iversen JR, Chiba AA, Khalil AK, Minces VH. (2020). One Tap at a Time: Correlating Sensorimotor Synchronization with Brain Signatures of Temporal Processing. Cereb Cortex Commun.; 1(1) Note: In neuroscience papers the last position corresponds to the research leader.
V. Minces, L. Pinto, Y. Dan, & A.A. Chiba (2017). Cholinergic shaping of neural correlations. Procedures of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 114-22 p. 5725-5730.
V. Minces, A. Khalil, I. Oved, C. Challen, A. Chiba (2016). Listening to Waves: Using computer tools to learn science through making music. EDULEARN16 Proceedings, pp. 3844-3852.
Khalil*, A. K., Minces*, V., McLoughlin, G., & Chiba, A. (2013). Group rhythmic synchrony and attention in children. Frontiers in Psychology, 4.
*These authors have contributed equally to this work.
Minces, V., Alexander, A. S., Datlow, M., Alfonso, S. I., & Chiba, A. A. (2013). The role of visual cortex acetylcholine in learning to discriminate temporally modulated visual stimuli. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 7, 16.
B. Medeiros, V. Minces, G.B. Mindlin, M. Copelli, Leite J.R. (2011). An excitable electronic circuit as a sensory neuron model. International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos vol. 22 (10) p. 1250244
J. Aliaga, N. Busca, V. Minces, G. B. Mindlin, B. Pando, A. Salles and L. Szsupak (2003). Electronic neuron within a ganglion of a leech (Hirudo Medicinalis). Phys. Rev. E 67, art 061915
Selected Conferences and Presentations
2021 Opening project talk at NSF’s ITEST PI’s meeting.
2020 Science of Music Workshop. California Science Teachers Association.
2019 Diving Deep into Music. Workshop. Deeper Learning Conference. High Tech High. San Diego, CA.
2016 Symbiosis between Research and Education. National Science Foundation (NSF) Network for Science of Learning Awardees Meeting. Arlington, Virginia. (Poster)
2015 Interactive Gamelan. Mozart and the Mind. San Diego, California. (Science and music installation)
2015 Musical Synchrony and Attention in School Children. International Symposium on Science for Education, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Oral presentation)
2015 Group Brain Dynamics in Learning – Presentation for Congressional Staff Members.
2013 In Sync: Music, Synchrony and Attention. Mozart and the Mind, by mainly Mozart. San Diego, California. (Public presentation).
2013 Building Interactions between Educators and Scientists, a Symbiotic Relationship. Conference of the International Mind Brain Education Society (IMBES). Quito, Ecuador. (Workshop Leader)
2012 The Gamelan Project: Music, Synchrony, and Attention – Presentation for the National Science Board. San Diego, California.
2012 The Gamelan Project –National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). (Webinar)
2012 Gamelan Project Demonstration, Online Analysis of Synchrony –American Education Research Association (AERA) meeting. (Oral presentation)
Selected Synergistic Activities
Reviewer for NSF grants.
Reviewer for: The Journal of Neuroscience, Cerebral Cortex, Annals of the New York Academy of Science, Scientific Reports, and the International Conference for the Learning Sciences (ISLS)
2016-Present LEAD fellow for advancing equity, diversity and inclusion (UCSD)
2003-2015 Founding member of the UCSD Neuroscience Outreach Group, which is still active and has served over 20,000 low-income underrepresented students.
Written about Minces’ Work
J van Kempen, S Panzeri, A Thiele (2017) Cholinergic Control of Information Coding. Trends in Neurosciences. 40-9. Pg. 522-524