Randal A. Koene, Ph.D., is a Dutch neuroscientist, neuroengineer, and a foundational figure in the field of whole brain emulation. He is the co-founder of Carboncopies.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to the outreach and roadmapping of Substrate-Independent Minds (SIM). His work is centered on the scientific and technological challenges of mind uploading—the hypothetical process of transferring a human mind from its biological substrate to a digital or synthetic one.
Born with an early passion for science fiction and space exploration, Koene was deeply influenced at age thirteen by Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars, which depicted a future where human minds were preserved and re-embodied by a central computer. This early exposure catalyzed a lifelong pursuit to overcome biological limitations through technology. He earned his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Information Theory from the Delft University of Technology, where he focused on extracting rule sets from neural networks. He subsequently completed a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience at McGill University, researching the functional requirements for modeling context-dependent memory.
In 2007, he was a key member of the Oxford working group that convened to create the first formal roadmap toward whole brain emulation. His research focuses on "system identification"—the process of mapping and emulating the specific neuronal circuitry and activity of an individual brain to create high-resolution, patient-specific neuroprostheses.
Beyond his technical contributions, Koene is a prominent voice in the transhumanist movement, frequently speaking on the ethics and philosophy of digital immortality. He posits that for humanity to remain adaptable and thrive in the face of future existential risks, we must develop the ability to function on a variety of hardware platforms. Through his development of NETMORPH—a computational framework for simulating the morphological development of neuronal circuitry—and his leadership at Carboncopies, Koene continues to advocate for a future where the essence of human identity is no longer tethered to a fragile biological vessel, but can be preserved and enhanced through rigorous scientific advancement.