The Academic Minute for 2024.03.25-2024.03.29

The Academic Minute from 3.25 – 3.29

Monday
Garriy Shteynberg – University of Tennessee-Knoxville
Sharing Attention Across Societal Divides
Garriy Shteynberg is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Garriy received his PhD in psychology from the University of Maryland, and a Master’s in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Oxford University. Beginning with his dissertation work, and taking over a decade to develop, Shteynberg has conceptualized and empirically tested the idea that shared awareness (theory of collective mind) is a hallmark of human psychology. Shteynberg has applied the concept of shared awareness to solve problems and reveal new questions in a variety of disciplines: the emergence of strategic cooperation (economics), novel social norms (sociology, anthropology), effective learning & teaching (education), social identities (psychology), the paradox of common knowledge (philosophy), and problem-solving (organizational behavior).

Tuesday
Laurence Hurst – University of Bath
Variety of Attitudes to Science
Since 1997 Laurence Hurst has been the Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at The University of Bath. Prior to this he was a Royal Society Research Fellow at Cambridge University (1994-1997) and a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford (1991-1993). Between his undergraduate degree at Cambridge University and his doctorate at Oxford University, he we was the Henry Fellow at Harvard University. He was the recipient of 2003 Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London, the 2010 Genetics Society Medal, the 2015 VC Research Medal and the 2024 Humboldt Prize. In 2010 he was the inaugural winner of the Excellence in Doctoral Supervision Prize. In 2004 he was elected a member of EMBO. In 2015 he was elected to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences and to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. He is the founding director of the Genetics and Evolution Teaching Project that researches the best way to teach evolution in schools. He is on the Advisory board of the Public Library of Science, Biology and sits on numerous editorial boards. He is a past President of the Genetics Society.

Wednesday
Ayse Zarakol – Cambridge University
Lessons From Historical World Orders for our Current Crisis
Dr. Ayşe Zarakol is a Professor of International Relations at the University Cambridge and a Fellow at Emmanuel College. She is the author of After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West and the editor of Hierarchies in World Politics. Her most recent book Before the West: the Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders has won six international book prizes.

Thursday
Keith Hengen – Washington University St. Louis
Sleep Resets the Brain’s Operating System
Keith Hengen was born and raised in Concord, NH, and was first introduced to neuroscience at Bates College. From there, Keith went directly to grad school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied the brains of hibernating ground squirrels. Keith then did his postdoctoral work under the mentorship of Gina Turrigiano at Brandeis University. It was there that he developed a deep interest in the mechanisms by which the brain maintains stable function/computation. Application of these theories to complex networks and behavior inevitably led to criticality and sleep. It’s the intersection of these two ideas that serves as the core of the Hengen Laboratory at Washington University in Saint Louis. The Hengen Lab, which started in 2017, is home to theoretical physicists, chemists, physiologists, computer scientists, a practicing neurologist, and a fleet of young students who are drawn to neuroscience. In addition to sleep, the lab is making great progress in applying ideas like criticality to the study of neurodegenerative diseases, learning, and complex behavior.

Friday
Deidre Popovich – Texas Tech University
Wine Nutrition Labels May Surprise Customers
Deidre Popovich is an associate professor of marketing in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University. She earned a PhD in marketing from Emory University and an MBA from Vanderbilt University.
Her research focuses on consumer psychology, including how decision contexts and information cues can influence consumer decision-making and self-control. Her research has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, and Behavior Research Methods, among others.