Sharp Brains: Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health News

 

Confirmed Speakers and Moderators

Con­firmed Speak­ers and Mod­er­a­tors Include:

Tracy Pack­iam Alloway

Tracy Pack­iam Alloway, PhD, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor, Uni­ver­sity of North Florida.

Tracy was recently awarded the pres­ti­gious Joseph Lis­ter Award by the British Sci­ence Asso­ci­a­tion for her con­tri­bu­tion to sci­ence. Tracy has devel­oped the only stan­dard­ized working-memory tests for edu­ca­tors pub­lished by Psy­cho­log­i­cal Cor­po­ra­tion, which to date has been trans­lated into 15 lan­guages and used to screen for work­ing mem­ory prob­lems in stu­dents with dyslexia, motor dys­praxia (Devel­op­men­tal Coor­di­na­tion Dis­or­der), ADHD and Autis­tic Spec­trum Dis­or­der. She pro­vides con­sul­tancy to the World Bank and her research has received wide­spread inter­na­tional cov­er­age in hun­dreds of media out­lets, includ­ing Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can, the BBC, Reuters, ABC News, and NBC.
Gregory Bayer

Dr. Gre­gory Bayer, CEO, Brain Resource

Dr. Bayer, Brain Resource’s new CEO, served most recently as the Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solu­tions, a divi­sion of United Health Group, serv­ing 43 mil­lion mem­bers. Under his lead­er­ship, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solu­tions dou­bled rev­enues to over two bil­lion dol­lars, entered new mar­kets and achieved a lead­ing mar­ket posi­tion both domes­ti­cally and inter­na­tion­ally. Dr. Bayer led the deci­sion to include Brain Resource prod­ucts in OptumHealth’s offerings.
Sharon Begley

Sharon Beg­ley, Senior Health & Sci­ence Cor­re­spon­dent, Reuters

Sharon Beg­ley, the senior health & sci­ence cor­re­spon­dent at Reuters, was the sci­ence edi­tor and the sci­ence colum­nist at Newsweek. She is the co-author (with Richard J. David­son) of the 2012 book The Emo­tional Life of Your Brain, the author of the 2007 book Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, and the co-author (with Jef­frey Schwartz) of the 2002 book The Mind and the Brain. She is the recip­i­ent of numer­ous awards for her writ­ing, includ­ing an hon­orary degree from the Uni­ver­sity of North Car­olina for com­mu­ni­cat­ing sci­ence to the pub­lic, and the Pub­lic Under­stand­ing of Sci­ence Award from the San Fran­cisco Exploratorium.
Robert Bilder

Dr. Robert Bilder, Chief of Med­ical Psychology-Neuropsychology, UCLA Semel Insti­tute for Neuroscience

Dr. Bilder is cur­rently the Michael E. Ten­nen­baum Fam­ily Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try & Biobe­hav­ioral Sci­ences, David Gef­fen School of Med­i­cine, and Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­ogy, Col­lege of Let­ters and Sci­ence; Chief of Med­ical Psy­chol­ogy — Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy and Direc­tor of the Ten­nen­baum Cen­ter for the Biol­ogy of Cre­ativ­ity in the Jane & Terry Semel Insti­tute for Neu­ro­science and Human Behav­ior. Dr. Bilder’s cur­rent research focuses on trans­dis­ci­pli­nary and trans­la­tional research. Dr. Bilder has been awarded diplo­mate sta­tus by the Amer­i­can Board of Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy. Dr. Bilder is a Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist who has been actively engaged for over 20 years in research on the neu­roanatomic and neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal bases of major men­tal ill­nesses. He has received many awards for his research con­tri­bu­tions, served on diverse fed­eral and inter­na­tional advi­sory boards, pro­vided edi­to­r­ial ser­vice to many schol­arly jour­nals, and received mul­ti­ple grants from the NIH, pri­vate foun­da­tions, and industry.
Sandra Bond Chapman

San­dra Bond Chap­man, Founder and Direc­tor, Cen­ter for Brain­Health at The Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Dallas.

San­dra Bond Chap­man, Ph.D., founder and chief direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Brain­Health at The Uni­ver­sity of Texas at Dal­las, is com­mit­ted to max­i­miz­ing human cog­ni­tive poten­tial across the entire human lifes­pan. As a cog­ni­tive neu­ro­sci­en­tist with more than 40 funded research grants, Dr. Chapman’s sci­en­tific study elu­ci­dates and applies novel approaches to advance cre­ative and crit­i­cal think­ing, strengthen healthy brain devel­op­ment, and incite inno­va­tion through­out life. Dr. Chapman’s research record and brain health break­throughs have led to nation­wide recog­ni­tion and selec­tion of the Cen­ter for Brain­Health as the sin­gle Vir­tual Cen­ter for the National Pedi­atric Acquired Brain Injury Plan to link all states with the most cur­rent assess­ment and train­ing for brain injury.
Shlomo Breznitz

Dr. Shlomo Breznitz, Pres­i­dent, CogniFit

Renowned cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gist, Pro­fes­sor Shlomo Breznitz has been engaged as vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor by numer­ous lead­ing insti­tu­tions includ­ing Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley, Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity, Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics, and the US Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices’ National Insti­tutes of Health. Author of seven books and many sci­en­tific arti­cles, Pro­fes­sor Breznitz is found­ing direc­tor of the Cen­ter for the Study of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Stress at the Uni­ver­sity of Haifa, where he also served as Lady Davis Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­ogy, Rec­tor, and Uni­ver­sity Pres­i­dent. His pio­neer­ing Dri­ve­Fit™ train­ing pro­gram, which was the first Cog­niFit com­mer­cial prod­uct, received the UK Prince Michael Road Safety Award.
Nolan Bushnell

Nolan Bush­nell, Founder, Atari

Nolan Key Bush­nell is an Amer­i­can engi­neer and entre­pre­neur who founded both Atari, Inc and the Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza-Time The­aters chain. Bush­nell has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Con­sumer Elec­tron­ics Asso­ci­a­tion Hall of Fame, received the BAFTA Fel­low­ship and the Nations Restau­rant News “Inno­va­tor of the Year” award, and was named one of Newsweek’s “50 Men Who Changed Amer­ica.” Bush­nell has started more than twenty com­pa­nies and is one of the found­ing fathers of the video game indus­try. He is cur­rently the Co-Founder and Chief Game Designer of Anti-Aging Games, a web­site of games designed to stim­u­late the brain and cre­ated by Bush­nell and two doc­tor­ate scientists.

David Coleiro

David is Part­ner at Strate­gic North. Strate­gic North is a bou­tique health­care strate­gic mar­ket­ing con­sult­ing firm with a dif­fer­ence. His pur­pose in life is to help pharma and other health­care com­pa­nies nav­i­gate a suc­cess­ful path through the new, con­stantly chang­ing world of healt­care and build joined up, strate­gic sto­ries. David’s 14 years of rich expe­ri­ence in pharma con­sul­tancy across health out­comes, mar­ket research and strate­gic mar­ket­ing. He has exper­tise in cut­ting edge insight into cus­tomer groups beyond the pre­scriber. He is more inter­ested in devel­op­ing future look­ing strate­gic sce­nar­ios that fit with an evolv­ing health­care environment.

Kristi Durazo

Kristi Durazo is Senior Strat­egy Advi­sor at Amer­i­can Heart Asso­ci­a­tion. She is engaged in sev­eral excit­ing ini­tia­tives such as Well-being and Health (fas­ci­nat­ing explo­ration of hap­pi­ness and mean­ing in life and how it imp­tacts health). She also works on urban / com­mer­cial / res­i­den­tial design and healthy liv­ing. She is also work­ing in the area of Gam­ing and Health, Expe­ri­ence Design and Health Behav­iors, Health 2.0 Devel­oper Chal­lenge and Idea and Inno­va­tion Generation.

Howard Eaton

Howard Eaton is the CEO of Eaton Edu­ca­tional Group. He founded Eaton Learn­ing Cen­tre in 1994, after earn­ing a degree in Psy­chol­ogy from UBC, fol­lowed by an Mas­ters in Edu­ca­tion at Boston Uni­ver­sity, where he spe­cial­ized in Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion and Assess­ment. He later founded Eaton Arrow­smith School® in Jan­u­ary 2005 and Mag­nussen School in July 2007. He has made it his life work to cre­ate com­pa­nies that pro­vide edu­ca­tional ser­vices that can change lives. In his spare time, Howard enjoys spend­ing time with his fam­ily. He also likes nature pho­tog­ra­phy and is an enthu­si­as­tic gardener.
Alvaro Fernandez

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, SharpBrains

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, named a Young Global Leader by the World Eco­nomic Forum in 2012, is Sharp­Brains’ co-founder and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer. He has been quoted by The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, CNN, and oth­ers. Alvaro co-authored The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, recently named a Best Book by AARP. He started his career at McK­in­sey & Com­pany and led the launch of sev­eral pub­lish­ing and edu­ca­tion com­pa­nies in the US and Europe. Alvaro has an MBA and MA in Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity, and enjoys teach­ing The Sci­ence of Brain Health at UC-Berkeley Osher Life­long Learn­ing Institute.
 

Dr. Sheryl Flynn, CEO, Blue Mar­ble Game Co

Dr. Sheryl Flynn is the founder and CEO of Blue Mar­ble Game Co, a seri­ous games com­pany that focuses design and devel­op­ment of video games to enhance reha­bil­i­ta­tion for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties world­wide. Sheryl has also begun the devel­op­ment of the Games4Rehab.com social net­work that aims to bring together indi­vid­u­als with dis­abil­i­ties, clin­i­cians, researchers and game indus­try pro­fes­sion­als to engage all inte­gral par­ties and push the bound­aries of games for reha­bil­i­ta­tion. In addi­tion to her entre­pre­neur­ial pur­suits, Dr. Flynn also con­sults with the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Insti­tute for Cre­ative Tech­nolo­gies and Divi­sion of Bioki­ne­si­ol­ogy and Phys­i­cal Ther­apy on the NIDRR funded OPTT-RERC grant to develop a suite of games that clin­i­cians can use in reha­bil­i­ta­tion set­tings. In addi­tion Sheryl also men­tors stu­dents from many uni­ver­si­ties nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally. As a mem­ber of the Amer­i­can Phys­i­cal Ther­apy Asso­ci­a­tion, Sheryl has offered her exper­tise in using games for reha­bil­i­ta­tion at local, state and national con­fer­ences. Dr. Flynn has authored numer­ous papers and pre­sen­ta­tions for national and inter­na­tional con­fer­ences and journals.
Lind­say Gask­ins

Lind­say Gask­ins, CEO, Mar­ble: the Brain Store

Lind­say started Mar­bles: The Brain Store in 2008 with the sim­ple idea of find­ing the best brain games out there and putting them all in one place. Not just prod­ucts for aging baby boomers con­cerned about mem­ory loss and vic­tims of brain dis­or­ders, but also any­one who wanted to improve focus and atten­tion, enhance cre­ativ­ity, become bet­ter multi-taskers. Mar­bles opened three more Chicagoland stores in 2009 and four more stores in 2010. Pre­vi­ously, Lind­say was a Vice Pres­i­dent at Sand­box Indus­tries, a Chicago-based ven­ture cap­i­tal fund and incubator.
Adam Gaz­za­ley

Adam Gaz­za­ley, Direc­tor of the Neu­ro­science Imag­ing Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Francisco

Dr. Gaz­za­ley is a fac­ulty mem­ber in the Neu­rol­ogy, Phys­i­ol­ogy and Psy­chi­a­try depart­ments, and prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor of a cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science lab­o­ra­tory that con­ducts research on the neural mech­a­nisms of atten­tion and mem­ory. A major focus of his research has been to expand our under­stand­ing of the alter­ations in the aging brain that lead to cog­ni­tive decline. His most recent stud­ies explore how we can pre­serve and improve atten­tion and mem­ory as we get older. He has received many awards and hon­ors for his research, includ­ing the 1997 Cor­ti­cal Scholar Award, Pfizer/AFAR Inno­va­tions in Aging Award and the Elli­son Foun­da­tion New Scholar Award in Aging.
Elkhonon Goldberg

Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, author, sci­en­tist, neuropsychologist

Elkhonon Gold­berg is an active researcher in the field of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science. He is par­tic­u­larly well rec­og­nized for his sci­en­tific con­tri­bu­tions in the areas of neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal the­ory, dynamic aspects of func­tional cor­ti­cal orga­ni­za­tion, frontal lobes, hemi­spheric spe­cial­iza­tion, and mem­ory. He is also well known for his inno­v­a­tive diag­nos­tic and reha­bil­i­ta­tive meth­ods, as well as for his work in cog­ni­tive enhance­ment. Elkhonon Gold­berg is the author of three books, includ­ing The New Exec­u­tive Brain: Frontal Lobes in a Com­plex World, and co-authored The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness, recently named a Best Book by AARP. Con­tem­po­rary Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy and the Legacy of Luria (1990) is a trib­ute to his men­tor and friend, the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexandr Luria.
 

Annette Good­man, Chief Edu­ca­tion Offi­cer, Arrow­smith Program

Annette Good­man is the Chief Edu­ca­tion Offi­cer at Arrow­smith Pro­gram. Annette Good­man holds a mas­ters degree in Indus­trial Psy­chol­ogy. Annette first worked for Arrow­smith Pro­gram twenty years ago as a cog­ni­tive teacher. After spend­ing ten years work­ing for a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion, Annette spear­headed a grass­roots, parent-driven effort to bring the Arrow­smith Pro­gram to the United States for her daugh­ter and oth­ers in the com­mu­nity. Annette also serves as Arrow­smith Program’s Direc­tor of Teacher Train­ing and in addi­tion she leads numer­ous research and devel­op­ment projects at Arrow­smith. She is involved in projects related to refine­ments of the method­ol­ogy as well as main­tain­ing the integrity of the deliv­ery of the pro­gram while offer­ing it more broadly.

Eric B. Gor­don, CEO, Atentiv

Mr. Gor­don has a suc­cess­ful track record of iden­ti­fy­ing and bring­ing emerg­ing med­ical and health­care tech­nolo­gies into the clinic, indus­try and major mar­ket dom­i­nance. Over the last 26 years he has been directly instru­men­tal, ini­ti­ated and man­aged through full devel­op­ment and/or full global com­mer­cial­iza­tion seven other startup com­pa­nies in pedi­atric, adult and traveler’s vac­cines (Con­naught Labs (now Sanofi-Pasteur, the largest global vac­cine co.) and Viro­ge­net­ics), com­bi­na­to­r­ial chem­istry for drug discovery/IPO (ArQule), clin­i­cal genomics for drug dis­cov­ery and diag­nos­tics (Ardais), drug-delivery for endometrio­sis and other women’s health appli­ca­tions (Com­bi­nent), HDL/CHD ther­a­peu­tics and clin­i­cal mod­els (Cardium) and in behav­ioral health/ADHD diag­nos­tics (BioBe­hav­ioral Diagnostics.)
Evian Gordon

Dr. Evian Gor­don, Exec­u­tive Chair­man, Brain Resource

Dr Evian Gor­don, PhD, MBBCh, is the Exec­u­tive Chair­man of Brain Resource. He ini­tially drew upon his sci­ence and med­ical back­ground to estab­lish the inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Brain Dynam­ics Cen­ter, in 1986. Through the Brain Dynam­ics Cen­ter and its col­lab­o­ra­tive net­works, Dr Gor­don estab­lished an “inte­gra­tive neu­ro­science” approach, grounded in the use of stan­dard­ized meth­ods across mul­ti­ple types of data. Using this approach, Dr Gor­don founded the “Brain Resource Com­pany”, that cre­ated the first inter­na­tional data­base on the human brain. The data­base is the asset which under­pins the devel­op­ment of new tools for brain health and its per­son­al­ized appli­ca­tion in the mar­ket, such as assess­ments of brain health, deci­sion sup­port sys­tems, and per­son­al­ized train­ing pro­grams. Brain Resource has also sup­ported the for­ma­tion of a non-profit 501c3 Foun­da­tion, called ‘BRAIN­net” (www.BRAINnet.net), through which sci­en­tists have access to many of these datasets for inde­pen­dent research.
Shawn Green

Dr. C. Shawn Green, Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. C. Shawn Green is the Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Green’s research inter­ests include the fac­tors that affect the gen­er­al­ity, rate, and depth of per­cep­tual and cog­ni­tive learn­ing. One of his main research tracks has focused on enhance­ments in visual pro­cess­ing evoked by play­ing one par­tic­u­lar sub-genre of video games (so-called “action video games”). These enhance­ments range from low-level vision (e.g., improve­ments in acu­ity and con­trast sen­si­tiv­ity), through mid-level vision (e.g. visual search in clut­ter), all the way to high-level vision (e.g., multiple-object track­ing, men­tal rota­tion). Much of his cur­rent research focuses on the ques­tion of why games have these broad effects (in con­trast to the speci­ficity often seen as a result of visual learn­ing) and how games can be har­nessed for prac­ti­cal pur­poses such as reha­bil­i­ta­tion and job train­ing. He is also an affil­i­ate fac­ulty mem­ber in the Games+Learning Soci­ety at the Uni­ver­sity of Wisconsin-Madison.
Kath­leen Herath

Kath­leen Herath, Asso­ciate Vice Pres­i­dent Health & Pro­duc­tiv­ity, Nation­wide Insurance

Kath­leen Herath, RN, BSN CRRN, over­sees the Health and Pro­duc­tiv­ity strat­egy at Nation­wide for the company’s 33,000 asso­ciates. She is respon­si­ble for the company’s inte­grated health and pro­duc­tiv­ity pro­gram, which includes: health screen­ings, well­ness pro­grams, dis­abil­ity and dis­ease man­age­ment, health edu­ca­tion, work life resources and walk­ing pro­grams and occu­pa­tional health clin­ics. The Health and Pro­duc­tiv­ity pro­gram at Nation­wide has been awarded more than six awards in the last three years includ­ing the pres­ti­gious C. Everett Koop National Health Award and Sharp­Brains’ Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Award.
Jonas Jendi

Jonas Jendi, CEO, Cogmed

Jonas Jendi joined Cogmed in 2001 as its chief exec­u­tive offi­cer. In 2007, Jendi opened Cogmed’s North Amer­i­can head­quar­ters in Naperville, IL, where he is now based. Prior to Cogmed, Jendi pro­vided strate­gic con­sult­ing for the Boston Con­sult­ing Group in Stock­holm and Paris, and held man­age­ment and con­sult­ing roles for var­i­ous tech­nol­ogy start-ups. He holds a MS from the Stock­holm School of Economics.
Holly Jimison

Dr. Holly Jimi­son, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor, Dept of Med­ical Infor­mat­ics &Clin­i­cal Epi­demi­ol­ogy, Ore­gon Health & Science

Holly B. Jimi­son, PhD is an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of med­ical infor­mat­ics and clin­i­cal epi­demi­ol­ogy at Ore­gon Health & Sci­ence Uni­ver­sity, with exper­tise and research expe­ri­ence in the design and eval­u­a­tion of home mon­i­tor­ing and inter­ac­tive health man­age­ment tools for a vari­ety of con­sumer pop­u­la­tions. Most recently, Dr. Jimison’s research has focused on health infor­ma­tion tools and assis­tive tech­nol­ogy for elders in the home and for chronic dis­ease man­age­ment. Dr. Jimi­son is a mem­ber of the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Oregon’s Cen­ter for Aging and Tech­nol­ogy, and is also a fac­ulty mem­ber of the Point-of-Care Lab­o­ra­tory at OHSU, where she has con­ducted usabil­ity tests of a vari­ety of home health tech­nolo­gies in a sim­u­lated home prior their deploy­ment in the homes of research sub­jects. Dr. Jimi­son is a Fel­low of the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Med­ical Infor­mat­ics, past pres­i­dent of the Ore­gon Chap­ter of the Health Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment Sys­tems Soci­ety, and an edi­tor of a text­book on Con­sumer Health Informatics.

Dr. Jonathan King, Pro­gram Direc­tor, NIH Divi­sion of Behav­ioral and Social Research

Dr. King leads a research port­fo­lio designed to under­stand the sci­ence of behav­ior change, cog­ni­tive aging and cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions, human fac­tors in older adults –espe­cially dri­ving–, tech­nol­ogy use by older adults and sta­tis­ti­cal meth­ods for aging research.
Peter Kissinger

Peter Kissinger, Pres­i­dent, AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety

J. Peter Kissinger is the Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of the AAA Foun­da­tion for Traf­fic Safety, a posi­tion he assumed in May of 2002. The Foun­da­tion is a pub­licly sup­ported, char­i­ta­ble research and edu­ca­tional orga­ni­za­tion that was founded by AAA in 1947. Its focus is on “sav­ing lives through research and edu­ca­tion.” The Foun­da­tion is sup­ported pri­mar­ily by con­tri­bu­tions from AAA clubs and indi­vid­ual AAA members.
Ken­neth Kosik

Ken­neth Kosik, Co-Director, UC Santa Bar­bara Neu­ro­science Research Institute

Dr. Kosik is the Co-Director of UCSB Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute and Founder of CFIT. He received his M.D. degree from the Med­ical Col­lege of Penn­syl­va­nia, com­pleted a neu­rol­ogy res­i­dency from Tufts New Eng­land Med­ical Cen­ter, and held var­i­ous appoint­ments at the Har­vard Med­ical School. In the fall of 2004 he assumed the co-directorship of the Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute and the Har­ri­man Chair at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia Santa Bar­bara. He has received mul­ti­ple awards, includ­ing a Whitaker Health Sci­ences Award from Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy, the Derek Denny-Brown Neu­ro­log­i­cal Scholar Award from the Amer­i­can Neu­ro­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion, the Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion, and a NASA Group Achieve­ment Award.
 

Corinna E. Lathan, Founder and CEO, AnthroTronix

Dr. Corinna Lathan co-founded Anthro­Tronix and is cur­rently Board Chair and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer. Dr. Lathan’s diverse back­ground includes exten­sive research, teach­ing, and con­sult­ing in the areas of human per­for­mance engi­neer­ing, med­ical device design, and assis­tive tech­nol­ogy. Pre­vi­ously, Dr. Lathan was an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing at The Catholic Uni­ver­sity of Amer­ica (CUA) and an Adjunct Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Aero­space Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land, Col­lege Park. Her work with chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties and robot­ics has been fea­tured in Forbes, Time, and the New Yorker mag­a­zines as well as led to such dis­tinc­tions as Maryland’s  “Top Inno­va­tor of the Year,” MIT Tech­nol­ogy Review Magazine’s “Top 100 World Inno­va­tors,” and one of Fast Com­pany Mag­a­zines “Most Cre­ative Peo­ple in Busi­ness.” She has also been named a Tech­nol­ogy Pio­neer and a Young Global Leader by the World Eco­nomic Forum and is cur­rently on their Global Agenda Coun­cil for Robot­ics and Smart devices. She is actively involved in edu­ca­tional out­reach pro­grams that empower women and minori­ties in sci­ence and technology.
 

Tan Le, CEO, Emo­tiv Lifesciences

Tan Le is a tech­nol­ogy entre­pre­neur, busi­ness exec­u­tive and sought-after speaker. She is founder and CEO of Emo­tiv Life­sciences, a bioin­for­mat­ics com­pany that advances under­stand­ing of the human brain and iden­ti­fies bio­mark­ers for men­tal and other neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tions using elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG). She is pur­su­ing the dream of per­form­ing inex­pen­sive and wide­spread brain func­tion screen­ing to catch early signs of autism, epilepsy, learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties, ADHD, and other con­di­tions. Tan has received many awards and appeared in innu­mer­able ‘Who’s Who in Aus­tralia’ lists; she was named among Fast Company’s Most Influ­en­tial Women in Tech­nol­ogy in 2010 and Forbes‘ 50 Names You Need to Know in 2011. In 2009, she was hon­ored by the World Eco­nomic Forum as a Young Global Leader since 2009, and in 2011, she was rec­og­nized with the Auto­Vi­sion Inno­va­tions Award and hon­ored as a Monash Uni­ver­sity Dis­tin­guished Alumni Award recipient.
Henry Mah­ncke

Henry Mah­ncke, CEO, Posit Science

Dr. Mah­ncke is Posit Science’s CEO. Pre­vi­ously, he led their Research & Out­comes team, design­ing sci­en­tific research and imple­ment­ing out­comes tri­als to advance the company’s prod­uct devel­op­ment. Dr. Mah­ncke did his grad­u­ate work and earned his doc­tor­ate in neu­ro­science in Dr. Merzenich’s lab at UCSF. He then worked as an Engage­ment Man­ager for McK­in­sey & Com­pany. While at McK­in­sey, Dr. Mah­ncke worked with lead­ing global health­care and con­sumer prod­ucts com­pa­nies in devis­ing mar­ket strate­gies. Dr. Mah­ncke has also served in the con­sulate of the British gov­ern­ment as a Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy con­sul­tant. He holds a BA from Rice Uni­ver­sity and a PhD from UCSF.

Brian Mossop

Brian is cur­rently the Com­mu­nity Edi­tor at Wired, where he work across the brand, both mag­a­zine and web­site, to build and main­tain strong social com­mu­ni­ties. Brian received a BS in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing from Lafayette Col­lege, and a PhD in Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing from Duke Uni­ver­sity in 2006. His post­doc­toral work was in neu­ro­science at UCSF and Genen­tech. Brian has writ­ten about sci­ence for Wired, Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can, Slate, Sci­en­tific Amer­i­can MIND, and else­where. I pri­mar­ily cover top­ics on neu­ro­science, devel­op­ment, behav­ior change, and health.

Olivier Oul­lier

Oliver is the pro­fes­sor of Behav­ioural and Brain Sci­ences at Aix-Marseille Uni­ver­sity. He stud­ies in com­plex sys­tems, human move­ment sci­ence, neu­ro­science and psy­chol­ogy; 2001, PhD, Univ. of the Mediter­ranean; PhD in Eco­nom­ics (expected 2012). Pro­fes­sor, Aix-Marseille Univ.; Research Asso­ciate, Cen­ter for Com­plex Sys­tems and Brain Sci­ences and GREQAM. Adviser, Cen­tre for Strate­gic Analy­sis, French Prime Min­is­ter, respon­si­ble for the Neu­ro­science and pub­lic pol­icy pro­gramme, a unique ini­tia­tive to improve policy-making in pre­ven­tion, health, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, edu­ca­tion, eco­nom­ics and finance with nudges and neu­roe­co­nom­ics. Mem­ber: Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, Pres­i­den­tial Obe­sity Plan; The Vir­tual Brain Project, an int’l non-profit sci­en­tific con­sor­tium that aims to shed new light on crit­i­cal issues in brain func­tion­ing. Mem­ber, Sci­en­tific Com­mit­tee: Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Law, Ethics and Sci­ence; High Coun­cil for Strate­gic Edu­ca­tion and Research. Young Global Leader, World Eco­nomic Forum (2011). Exper­tise: the behav­ioural and brain dynam­ics of decision-making and their use in strat­egy, policy-making, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, cri­sis and risk management.
Michael Posner

Dr. Michael Pos­ner, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus, Uni­ver­sity of Oregon

Michael Pos­ner is Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus at the Uni­ver­sity of Ore­gon and Adjunct Pro­fes­sor at the Weill Med­ical Col­lege in New York (Sack­ler Insti­tute). He is cur­rently engaged in a project with Mary K. Roth­bart to under­stand the devel­op­ment of brain net­works under­ly­ing atten­tion. This work explores the inter­ac­tion of genes and expe­ri­ence in nor­mal and atyp­i­cal development.
William E. Reich­man

William Reich­man, Pres­i­dent, Baycrest

Dr. William E. Reich­man is Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Bay­crest, one of the world’s pre­mier aca­d­e­mic health sci­ences cen­tres focused on aging and brain func­tion. Dr. Reich­man, an internationally-known expert in geri­atric men­tal health and demen­tia is also Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try on the Fac­ulty of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto. He is a noted author­ity on the deliv­ery of men­tal health and demen­tia ser­vices in nurs­ing home set­tings. His pre­vi­ous aca­d­e­mic activ­i­ties have focused on the phar­ma­co­log­i­cal treat­ment of Alzheimer’s dis­ease and its asso­ci­ated apa­thy and neg­a­tive symp­toms. Dr. Reich­man is a for­mer Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion for Geri­atric Psy­chi­a­try and the Geri­atric Men­tal Health Foundation.
David Rock

Dr. David Rock, Co-Founder, Neu­roLead­er­ship Institute

Dr. David Rock is the Co-Founder of the Neu­roLead­er­ship Insti­tute and the author of 4 books includ­ing the 2009 business-best-seller ‘Your Brain at Work’. David is also the founder and CEO of the Neu­roLead­er­ship Group a global con­sult­ing and train­ing firm. Aca­d­e­m­i­cally, David is on the fac­ulty and advi­sory board of Cimba, an inter­na­tional busi­ness school based in Europe. He is a guest lec­turer at uni­ver­si­ties in 5 coun­tries includ­ing Oxford University’s Said Busi­ness School, and on the board of the BlueSchool, a new edu­ca­tional ini­tia­tive in New York City. He received his pro­fes­sional doc­tor­ate in the Neu­ro­science of Lead­er­ship from Mid­dle­sex Uni­ver­sity in 2010.
Dharma Singh Khalsa

Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa, Pres­i­dent, Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foundation

Dr Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D. has been the Pres­i­dent and Med­ical Direc­tor of the Alzheimer’s Research and Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion in Tuc­son, Ari­zona, the orig­i­nal voice in the inte­gra­tive or holis­tic med­ical approach to the pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of mem­ory loss. The ARPF is ded­i­cated to fight­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease and find­ing a cure through research and pre­ven­tion. Dr. Khalsa grad­u­ated from Creighton Uni­ver­sity School of Med­i­cine in 1975, and received his post­grad­u­ate train­ing in anes­the­si­ol­ogy at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cisco where he was chief res­i­dent. As chief res­i­dent, he con­ducted highly acclaimed research on anes­the­sia for car­diac surgery and obstet­ri­cal anes­the­si­ol­ogy. He is also a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les Med­ical Acupunc­ture for Physi­cians Pro­gram, and has stud­ied mind/body med­i­cine at Har­vard Med­ical School ‘s Mind/Body Med­ical Insti­tute. Dr. Khalsa is board cer­ti­fied in anes­the­si­ol­ogy and pain management.
Yaakov Stern

Yaakov Stern, Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion Leader, Colum­bia University

Dr. Stern directs the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion of the Sergievsky Cen­ter and is Direc­tor of Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy for the Mem­ory Dis­or­ders Clinic at the New York State Psy­chi­atric Insti­tute. He also directs the post-doctoral train­ing pro­gram Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy and Cog­ni­tion in Aging, and is a Pro­fes­sor of Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy in the Depart­ments of Neu­rol­ogy, Psy­chi­a­try, and Psy­chol­ogy, as well as the in Sergievsky Cen­ter and the Taub Insti­tute for the Research on Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and the Aging Brain, at Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity Col­lege of Physi­cians and Surgeons.
Yi-Yuan Tang

Dr. Yi-Yuan Tang, Direc­tor, Texas Tech Neu­roimag­ing Institute

Dr. Yi-Yuan Tang is inter­na­tion­ally known in the use of func­tional MRI (fMRI) to exam­ine brain con­nec­tiv­ity in cog­ni­tive task and found cul­tures shape math pro­cess­ing in the brain. Tang is the founder of Inte­gra­tive Body-Mind Train­ing (IBMT), a means for improv­ing self-regulation and reduc­ing or pre­vent­ing var­i­ous men­tal dis­or­ders. Tang is a fel­low of the Asso­ci­a­tion for Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence (APS) and has pub­lished more than 190 internationally/nationally peer-reviewed arti­cles in jour­nals such as Pro­ceed­ings of the National Acad­emy of Sci­ences, Trends in Cog­ni­tive Sci­ences, and Neu­roim­age. Tang’s research applies the tools of neu­roimag­ing, psy­choso­cial and phys­i­o­log­i­cal mea­sures (heart rate vari­abil­ity, skin con­duc­tance, etc.), as well as genetic analy­sis, and cov­ers the top­ics in cul­tural neu­ro­science, cog­ni­tive, affec­tive and social neu­ro­science, devel­op­men­tal neu­ro­science, body-mind med­i­cine, pre­ven­tion sci­ence, com­pu­ta­tional neu­ro­science, and neuroleadership.
Kate Sul­li­van

Kate Sul­li­van, Direc­tor of the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter, Wal­ter Reed National Mil­i­tary Med­ical Center

Kate Sul­li­van M.S., CCC-SLP, CBIS com­pleted her under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate degrees in Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Sci­ences and Dis­or­ders at James Madi­son Uni­ver­sity. She has been a speech-language pathol­o­gist at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter for 10 years where she recently helped launch the Brain Fit­ness Cen­ter (BFC), located in the WRAMC’s Mil­i­tary Advanced Train­ing Cen­ter, to com­ple­ment tra­di­tional care approaches.
Keith Wesnes

Keith Wesnes, Prac­tice Leader, United BioSource Corporation

In 1986 Pro­fes­sor Wesnes founded Cog­ni­tive Drug Research (acquired in 2009 by United BioSource) to offer this sys­tem as a ser­vice in clin­i­cal tri­als. Pro­fes­sor Wesnes has pub­lished over 270 peer-reviewed research arti­cles as well as more than 20 chap­ters and lit­er­a­ture reviews. He holds Pro­fes­sor­ships at the Human Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Unit at Northum­bria Uni­ver­sity, New­cas­tle, UK and the Brain Sci­ences Insti­tute at Swin­burne Uni­ver­sity, Mel­bourne, Australia.
Molly Wag­ster

Dr. Molly Wag­ster, Chief of the Behav­ioral and Sys­tems Neu­ro­science Branch in the Divi­sion of Neu­ro­science, National Insti­tute on Aging (NIA)

Dr. Wag­ster over­sees admin­is­tra­tion and devel­op­ment of research in cog­ni­tive and emo­tional change with age and in sen­sory and motor dis­or­ders of aging. She directly man­ages a port­fo­lio of research in mech­a­nisms of cog­ni­tive (mem­ory, learn­ing, atten­tion, lan­guage) and affec­tive (emo­tion) change with age that spans research from mol­e­cules to behav­ior. She serves as the NIH Project Offi­cer for the devel­op­ment of the NIH Tool­box for Assess­ment of Neu­ro­log­i­cal and Behav­ioral Func­tion (con­tract sup­ported by the NIH Blue­print for Neu­ro­science Research) and directs the trans-NIH Cog­ni­tive and Emo­tional Health Project. Dr. Wag­ster received her MS and PhD in Biopsy­chol­ogy from Tulane Uni­ver­sity and com­pleted a post­doc­toral fel­low­ship in Neu­ropathol­ogy at The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­sity School of Medicine.
Peter J. Whitehouse

Dr. Peter White­house, Pro­fes­sor, Case West­ern Reserve University

Peter J. White­house, MD, PhD is Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­ogy as well as for­mer Pro­fes­sor of Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence, Psy­chi­a­try, Neu­ro­science, Psy­chol­ogy, Nurs­ing, Orga­ni­za­tional Behav­ior, Bioethics and His­tory. With col­leagues he dis­cov­ered fun­da­men­tal aspects of the cholin­er­gic pathol­ogy in Alzheimer’s and related demen­tias, which lead to the devel­op­ment of our cur­rent gen­er­a­tion drugs to treat these con­di­tions. He is clin­i­cally active at Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tals of Cleve­land in the Joseph Foley Elder Health Cen­ter at Fairhill Cen­ter car­ing for indi­vid­u­als with con­cerns about their cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties as they age. His research inter­ests include the neu­ro­bi­ol­ogy of what he used to refer to as Alzheimer’s dis­ease and related con­di­tions, the devel­op­ment of more effec­tive treat­ments for indi­vid­u­als with cog­ni­tive impair­ment, includ­ing drugs and non-biological inter­ven­tions, eth­i­cal issues in the med­ical pro­fes­sion and inte­gra­tive health care sys­tems. He is the author (with Danny George) of a provoca­tive book enti­tled The Myth of Alzheimer’s: What You Aren’t Being Told About Today’s Most Dreaded Diagnosis.