Curtis Lee Baker is a Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at McGill University's Faculty of Medicine, with an associate appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. His research focuses on understanding human visual perception through neural mechanisms relevant to real-world visual processing. His laboratory investigates how early visual processing detects complex cues like contrast, texture, and motion to establish figure-ground relationships and depth perception. Key research areas include: Neural mechanisms of second-order vision Texture and motion processing Figure-ground segregation Depth perception from motion parallax Computational modeling of visual cortex Dr. Baker employs diverse methodologies including single-unit electrophysiology, optical imaging, human psychophysics, and machine learning. His recent publications (2022-2014) demonstrate consistent focus on neural processing of visual boundaries, texture perception, and motion-based depth cues, with increasing integration of computational approaches like convolutional neural networks. His work bridges neuroscience, engineering, and computational modeling to understand fundamental visual processing mechanisms. Current students include Ana Ramirez Hernandez, Jinani Sooriyaarachchi, and Ethan Pirso, with several alumni having completed graduate work in neuroscience, physiology, and biomedical engineering. The lab actively recruits students with quantitative backgrounds for projects involving signal processing, machine learning, and neurophysiological data analysis.
