Remembering Professor Steven L. Bressler

Sadly, Dr. Steven L. Bressler passed away peacefully on November 18, 2025. Dr. Bressler was a Professor in the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Department of Psychology at FAU. He was a former director of the Center from 2015-2019 until his retirement in 2019. Dr. Bressler graduated from Clayton High School in St Louis, Miss. in 1969, earned his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1972, and his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1982 under the supervision of Dr. Walter Freeman. He completed postdoctoral training with Dr. Alan Gevins at University of California San Francisco, where he worked as a research scientist specializing in human electrophysiology.

Steve was an early hire at the Center for Complex Systems and the Department of Psychology in 1991. As a cognitive neuroscientist he played a key role in the Center’s NIMH National Training Program in Complex Systems and Brain Sciences both pedagogically and for his high-quality research. As his CV so clearly shows, Steve was a great asset to FAU, The Department of Psychology and The Center for Complex Systems (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=aJF2BAoAAAAJ&hl=en). As an esteemed FAU faculty member Steve was recently listed among the world’s top 2% of scientists.  His research focused on the coordination dynamics within and between cortical regions of the brain by means of recording and analysis of fMRI, EEG, MEG, and LFP data. Working with colleagues, Steve’s dynamic network perspective on the structure and function of the cerebral cortex was shown to be adaptive and hypothesized to underlie the emergence of cognition in the brain. His legacy will live on in his many published research works with students and colleagues.  One of his former graduate students, now a professor himself, on learning of Steve’s passing, responded: “He was a great mentor, scientist, and friend, as I wrote in my dissertation”. That says it all about Dr. Steven L. Bressler. We at the Center will miss him for his science, his leadership and his “whimsical humor.”

Our heartfelt condolences and thoughts are with Steve’s family, particularly his beloved wife, Karen Bressler and his children David Bressler, Kristina Bressler, and Isaac (Rachel) Bressler.