Draft:Jason Sherwin

Jason Sherwin (born 1983) is an American physicist and engineer. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder of deCervo, a neuroscience technology company he founded in 2014 to develop a patent from Columbia University in the neural engineering field.

Sherwin, a classically trained pianist, also recreationally creates electronic dance music (EDM) records under the name "Shredder Thor" and classical music records under the name "Binary and Not."

Early Life and Education
Jason Sherwin was born in 1983 in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America. He is the only child of Rabbi Byron Sherwin and Judith Sherwin. He attended the day school of the Anshe Emet Synagogue and completed high school at the Latin School of Chicago. At University of Chicago, Sherwin studied physics and music as an undergraduate, finishing in 2005. He earned master's and doctorate degrees at Georgia Institute of Technology in aerospace engineering, graduating in 2010. His thesis merged neuroscience-inspired algorithms designed by Jeff Hawkins with complex systems theory to develop tools for analyzing and engineering a system of systems.

Academic Career
After completing his doctorate, Sherwin pursued the intersection of neuroscience and engineering at the Laboratory for Intelligent Imaging and Neural Computing at Columbia University, being mentored by Professor Paul Sajda, a leading researcher in brain-computer interface technology. While at Columbia, Sherwin met deCervo co-founder, Jordan Muraskin, who was then a graduate student. Sherwin’s early work at Columbia on the perceptual decision-making of music listening prompted an interest in Muraskin suggesting they apply these results to their common interest in sports. They quickly settled on the perceptual decision-making of recognizing a baseball pitch when batting.

With the support of Sajda, Sherwin and Muraskin published multiple studies in peer-reviewed neuroscience and neural engineering journals. These articles centered on their work in the perceptual decision-making of hitting a baseball pitch. Their first study identified neural correlates in electroencephalography (EEG) for different pitch types, such as fastballs, curveballs and sliders. They followed this study with a comparison of the neural correlates in a comparatively expert population of subjects (here, Division I college baseball players) to a general gender- and age-matched undergraduate population sample. Simultaneously, Sherwin and Muraskin began to image these decision-making processes with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and structural imaging. From fMRI, they identified networks of neural structures whose activity before a pitch could predict upcoming performance. They also identified resting state network features that predicted hitting expertise. Extending other work at LIINC in combining EEG and MRI for perceptual decision-making analysis, Sherwin and Muraskin used EEG to inform a spatio-temporal map of how a person (and more specifically, hitters) identify and recognize pitches thrown towards them. With Sajda, Sherwin and Muraskin are inventors on the patent chronicling this technology for neuroimaging during baseball pitch identification.

Founding
Sherwin’s research with Muraskin began to attract attention outside of neuroscience, and most specifically in the world of sports. This interest was picked up by the scientific popular press and later the general popular press. Multiple books have also featured deCervo's work and interviews with Sherwin. Seeking to apply their invention in sports, Sherwin and Muraskin founded Neuroscout LLC in February 2014. In September 2014, the Wall Street Journal interviewed Sherwin and Muraskin about their invention and nascent company, covering its potential impact in identifying and developing hitters in Major League Baseball. This article also featured the “similarly named” company, called “Neuroscouting”. By the beginning of 2015, Neuroscout LLC had changed its name to deCervo LLC (or more commonly known as “deCervo”). The origin of the company name is reportedly linked to a girlfriend of Sherwin at the time. Being from France, she suggested du cerveau, or “from the brain” in French, and Sherwin and Muraskin anglicized the phrase to alliterate with “decisions,” resulting in the name “decervo”, or its more common capitalization as “deCervo”.

Beginning in Baseball
As Chief Executive Officer of deCervo, Sherwin worked with Muraskin, serving as Chief Technology Officer, to develop a perceptual decision-making tool for the scouting and development of baseball hitters. They began to offer such services as consultants to Major League Baseball teams in 2015 and expanded their work in professional baseball to seven clubs by the following season. Since 2016, deCervo has produced and maintained “uHIT” as a phone app, data dashboard and automated coaching tool that aids players and coaches in the scouting and development of baseball hitters. In addition to English, uHIT is used in Spanish by professional players in Latin America and in Korean by Korean Baseball Organization hitters in South Korea. uHIT is used in youth and college too.

Leading to Other Sports
In 2018, Sherwin led deCervo's development of its first perceptual decision training app and dashboard for use outside of baseball. In a partnership with the National Hockey League, deCervo developed "uCALL for Officials" to be a tool for referees and linesmen to better see penalty calls. Sherwin was interviewed in 2015 by former National Basketball Association (NBA) Commissioner, David Stern, as part of a Columbia University Entrepreneurship forum. Later, with Stern’s introduction to his former NBA-colleague, Gary Bettman, Sherwin and Muraskin developed uCALL for Officials under the direction of Stephen Walkom, Director of Officiating at the NHL. In the 2022-23 season, the American Hockey League and East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) adopted uCALL for Officials for training its referees and linesmen.

Leading Outside of Sports
Sherwin then led deCervo's development of its first perceptual decision training app and dashboard outside of sports. This tool, known as “e-TRAIN”, is for law enforcement officers to learn to apply the law better in a range of decisions commonly encountered, such as traffic stops and uses of force.

Leading Work with US Army
Since 2017, Sherwin has led deCervo's research work for the United States Army.

Music
Sherwin performs regularly in Sullivan County, New York near his home as a disc jockey under the name "Shredder Thor" producing a variety of electronic dance music (EDM).