Distinguished Fellows for 2011-2012

Dr. Armand Leroi is the Professor of Evolutionary Developmental Biology at Imperial College, London. His research examines the genetic control of growth and ageing using the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a minute worm studied by thousands of scientists world-wide. He has also studied the evolution of music, both as produced by people in cultures around the world, and in an experimental setting. He is the recipient of the Times/Novartis Scientist for the New Century Medal from the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the BIOSIS Prize from the Zoological Society of London, and the Guardian First Book Award. He is known for his TV series on the BBC and is the author of the book, Mutants: On the form, variety and errors of the Human body. He is currently writing a book on Aristotle’s biology.

The following lectures will be held at 3:00 PM in Bren Hall 4L, Room 4016.

October 17 The Metabolic Structure of Life History in C. elegans

October 24 The Experimental Evolution of Music

October 31 Aristotle and The Search for the Soul

November 7 Mutants — and what to do about them.

Robert Plomin is Professor of Behavioural Genetics at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. After receiving a PhD in behavioural genetics from the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin Dr. Plomin held professorships at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Pennsylvania State University. In 1994, he came to the Institute of Psychiatry as MRC Research Professor to establish with Professor Michael Rutter the SGDP Centre. The theme of the Centre and of his research is bringing together genetic and environmental research strategies to study behavioural development. In 1994, Dr. Plomin launched the Twins Early Development Study of all twins born in England and Wales in 1994-96, began a study of all twins born in England during 1994-96, which focuses on developmental problems in cognition and behaviour. During the past decade his research has increasingly turned towards harnessing the power of molecular genetics, especially genome-wide association strategies, to identify genes for psychological traits in order to help understand the developmental interplay between genes and environment. He is an international leader in behavioural genetics and was the youngest President of the Behavior Genetics Association. His awards include: Fellow, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2001); Fellow, The Academy of Medical Sciences (2002); Fellow, American Academy of Political and Social Science (2005); Fellow, British Academy (2005); and lifetime research achievement awards from the Behavior Genetics Association (2002), the Society for Research in Child Development (2005), and the American Psychological Society (2005). Dr. Plomin has published more than 500 papers and is senior author of the major textbook in the field (Behavioral Genetics) as well as author of a dozen other books including Genetics and Experience: The Interplay Between Nature and Nurture.

The following lectures will be held at 3:00 PM in Bren Hall 4L, Room 4016.

February 6 Behavioral genetics and the mind

February 13 DNA and the mind

February 22 Genetics, learning abilities and disabilities, and education

February 27 Genetics and experience

Dr. Charles Brainerd is Professor of Human Development and Psychology at Cornell University. Professor Brainerd holds B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in experimental and developmental psychology from Michigan State University. His research covers areas such as human memory and decision-making, statistics and mathematical modeling, cognitive neuroscience, learning, intelligence, cognitive development, learning disability and child abuse. Dr. Brainerd's current research program centers on the relation between memory and higher reasoning abilities in children and adults, and it also focuses on false-memory phenomena. Together with Dr. Valerie Reyna, he is the co-developer of fuzzy-trace theory, a model of the relation between memory and higher reasoning that has been widely applied within medicine and law. He is board-certified in forensic examination and in forensic medicine. Dr. Brainerd has received the Governor of Arizona's Spirit of Excellence Award for scholarly work in higher education and the Trial Defense Services Medal of the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army. Dr. Brainerd advises civilian and military courts on memory research and has contributed to amicus briefs in many appeal cases, including death penalty appeals.

The following lectures will be held at 3:00 PM in Bren Hall 4L, Room 4016.

April 16 The Gist of Remembering: Memory in Two Minds

April 30 The Law's Memory and Memory's Laws

Dr. Kevin Ochsner is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University. Professor Ochsner received his B.A. in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard University. He then went on to receive postdoctoral training in social psychology and functional neuroimaging at Stanford University with Dr. John Gabrieli. Dr. Ochsner’s research interests include the psychological and neural processes involved in emotion, pain, self-regulation, self perception, and person perception. All of his work employs a social cognitive neuroscience approach that seeks to integrate the theories and methods of social psychology on the one hand, and cognitive neuroscience on the other. In 2008, he was awarded the Young Investigator Award from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society.

The following lectures will be held at 3:00 PM in Bren Hall 4L, Room 4016.

June 4 How thinking controls feeling: From basic mechanisms to mechanistic breakdowns

June 18 Unpacking the mechanisms of empathy and empathic accuracy