Ignorance and Curiosity
Saturday 27 April, 2013
2:30 - 4:30pm, $0
New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute
247 East 82 Street, Young Auditorium
Heather Berlin is a cognitive neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She explores the complex interactions of the human brain and mind with the goal of contributing to improved treatment and prevention of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric disorders. She is also interested in the neural basis of consciousness and dynamic unconscious processes. Berlin is a Visiting Scholar at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Vassar College, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)/University of Zurich, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a presenter on the Discovery Channel and has appeared on the BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4, and StarTalk Radio.
Stuart Firestein is the Chair of Columbia University's Department of Biological Sciences, where he studies the vertebrate olfactory system. Aside from its molecular detection capabilities, the olfactory system serves as a model for investigating general principles and mechanisms of signaling and perception in the brain. Dr. Firestein's laboratory seeks to answer that fundamental human question: How do I smell? Recently he was awarded the 2011 Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship and teaching. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). His book on the workings of science for a general audience, Ignorance, How it drives Science, was published in 2012. Dr. Firestein serves as an advisor for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's program for the Public Understanding of Science.
Paul Harris is a developmental psychologist with interests in the development of cognition, emotion, and imagination. He taught at the University of Lancaster, the Free University of Amsterdam, the London School of Economics, and St John's College at Oxford. Since 2001, he has held the Victor S. Thomas Professorship of Education at Harvard. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. For 2006-2007, he received a Guggenheim award. His book on children's play and imagination, The Work of the Imagination, appeared in 2000. He currently studies how young children learn about history, science, and religion on the basis of what trusted informants tell them. His latest book, Trusting What You're Told: How Children Learn from Others, was published in 2012.