Face Value: How the Brain Shapes Human Connection
Program Overview
Join us for an exciting conversation with 2024 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience recipient Nancy Kanwisher. Dr. Kanwisher's lab asks, what is the nature of the human mind? Using brain imaging to look for regions of the brain associated with aspects of the mind, she has identified cortical regions that are selectively engaged in the perception of faces, places, and bodies, and other regions specialized for uniquely human functions including music, language, and thinking about other people’s thoughts.
Speaker Bio
Nancy Kanwisher is the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a founding member of the McGovern Institute at MIT. She joined the MIT faculty in 1997, and prior to that, served on the faculty at UCLA and Harvard University. She is well-known for her role as a mentor to young neuroscientists, and cites her own mentor, MIT professor and cognitive psychologist Molly Potter, as the reason for her successful career in neuroscience. She hosts a website with short lectures for lay audiences about human cognitive neuroscience and her undergraduate course, “The Human Brain,” is freely available to the public through MIT OpenCourseWare.
Image Credit: The Kavli Prize
Learn More about Dr. Nancy Kanwisher
Moderator
Frank Sesno serves as the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Professor at the School of Media and Public Affairs, and as the Executive Director of the George Washington University Alliance for a Sustainable Future. The Alliance is a broad pan-university initiative to amplify the university’s teaching, research, convening and impact relating to global challenges around climate change, environmental justice, and sustainability. Sesno is also a founder of PlanetForward.org, a multi-platform project that brings students and experts together to examine sustainable innovations that "move the planet forward."
Our Partners
This event is co-hosted by Carnegie Science with The Kavli Foundation, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research.
