Kopell is William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Boston University.  After obtaining a Ph.D. in pure mathematics, she immediately switched to applied mathematics, and has been working in neuroscience for the last several decades.  She has pioneered the modeling of the oscillating systems in the brain, especially the physiological mechanisms underlying brain dynamics and coordination.  She has published multiple papers on dynamics of the thalamus, basal ganglia and cortex. She works with biophysically detailed models that address the question of how the physiology underlying brain dynamics supports cognitive function, and how changes in dynamics can lead to behavioral pathology.