Avis Cohen received her PhD from Cornell University in Neurobiology and Behavior. She did post-doctoral in Sweden at the Karolinska Institute, and another at Washington University in St. Louis. She returned to Cornell where she had her own laboratory and funding and was a Research Associate, and subsequently a Senior Research Associate. In 1990 she came to University of Maryland to assume a position in the Department of Zoology (now Biology). She has worked for many years with mathematicians modeling systems of coupled oscillators, and now also works with engineers in neuromorphic systems. She and several others are co-directors of the Annual Telluride Workshop in Neuromorphic Engineering.