Michael A. Arbib is currently the Fletcher Jones Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering,and Neuroscience and Psychology as well as the former (and first) Director of the USC Human Brain Project. Arbib has based his career on the argument that we can learn much about machines from studying brains, and much about brains from studying machines. He has thus always worked for an interdisciplinary environment in which computer scientists and engineers can talk to neuroscientists and cognitive scientists. His primary research focus is on the coordination of perception and action.

Arbib's papers document his research as a theoretical neuroscientist and a computer scientist, as well as his work as a professor at USC. Included in the collection are his correspondence with colleagues in the field and publishers; articles and manuscript materials; and material pertaining to the Human Brain Project which Arbib conducted in the late 1990s. The papers cover much of Arbib's career and research at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst during his years before arriving at USC. Most of the materials comprising this collection are Arbib's extensive subject and author files which highlight all of Arbib's chief fields of study.