Terry Sejnowski

TERRY S. 1997

SYMMETRY. Rotation by 180 degrees. Turn this design upside down and you will see that it reads the same both ways.

INSPIRATION. For Terrence Sejnowski, computational neurobiologist, on the occasion of his birthday.

STORY. I recently had the pleasure of performing with the Dr. Schaffer & Mr. Stern Dance Ensemble at a birthday party for Terrence Sejnowki, hosted by his parents-in-law Solomon and Bo Golomb. The Golombs figured that a mathematical dance performance would be just right for Terry’s scientifically minded friends. I presented Terry with this design during the performance as a birthday present.
 Terry runs the Computational Neurobiology Lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He is the co-author with Churchland of the bookThe Computational Brain, a basic textbook on computational neurobiology. This emerging field seeks to understand the brain by modeling its workings through neural nets and other means. The book includes fascinating discussions of how vision and memory work.
 During the birthday party, Terry gave a hilarious improvised talk based on a tray of slides that he had never seen. The slides, assembled by his friends, included personal, artistic, and scientific images that certainly didn’t belong in the same story. His ability to weave them into a polished narrative not only showed off his expertise as a speaker, it also made me realize just how much speakers improvise in order to cover holes in their presentation.
 Terry is married to high-powered medical researcher Beatrice Golomb, who had just returned from a trip to Kuwait with high ranking governmental and military officials investigating Gulf War Syndrome. Beatrice has a nose for truth that leads her to question accepted medical practice. For instance, her recent paper “Are Placebos Bearing False Witness?” in Chemistry & Industry points out that there are no standards for ensuring that placebos are inert: some substances used as placebos have since turned out to be medically active.
 I have known father-in-law Solomon Golomb for many years through our common interest in recreational mathematics. See my inversion on his name.
 TERRY is an easy name to invert. The surprise for me was discovering that the crossbar of the T could be rationalized as a rather snaky S, reminiscent of the top crossbar of the E in EGYPTIAN. The lettering style uses the precise geometric circular arcs of the art deco style.