People
Susan Magsamen is the founder and executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab), Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics, a pioneering initiative from the Pedersen Brain Science Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her body of work lies at the intersection of brain sciences and the arts — and how our unique response to aesthetic experiences can amplify human potential.
Magsamen is the author of the Impact Thinking model, an evidence-based research approach to accelerate how we use the arts to solve problems in health, well-being, and learning. In addition to her role at IAM Lab, she is an assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins and serves as co-director of the NeuroArts Blueprint initiative in partnership with the Aspen Institute.
Susan’s newest book with Random House is Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us, written with Ivy Ross, Vice President of Design for Hardware at Google. It is a journey through the science of neuroaesthetics that offers proof of how our brains and bodies are transformed when we participate in the arts and aesthetic experiences, and how this knowledge can improve our physical and mental health, help us learn and flourish, and build stronger communities.
Prior to founding IAM Lab, Magsamen worked in both the private and public sector, developing social impact programs and products addressing all stages of life — from early childhood to the senior years. Magsamen created Curiosityville, an online personalized learning world, acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2014 and Curiosity Kits, a hands-on multi-sensory company, acquired by Torstar in 1995.
An award-winning author, Magsamen has published eight books including The Classic Treasury of Childhood Wonder, The 10 Best of Everything Families, and Family Stories.
Magsamen is a Fellow at the Royal Society of the Arts and a strategic advisor to several innovative organizations and initiatives, including the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, the American Psychological Association, the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Brain Futures, Learning Landscapes, and Creating Healthy Communities: Arts + Public Health in America.
Karen Alexander is Director of Outreach and Education for the International Arts + Mind Lab. She has worked in program management, research, and communications across a wide range of education issues at local, state and federal levels. Her areas of expertise include PreK-12 education, social-emotional learning, and the intersections between neuroscience and mental health.
Prior to joining the International Arts + Mind Lab, Karen served as program director for BrainFutures, a national nonprofit formed to assess and advance the practical application of neuroscience research to improve human outcomes. She has also worked with the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers (now the Maryland Philanthropy Network), Baltimore Community Foundation, Communities in Schools of North Carolina, Urban Institute, and ZERO TO THREE State Policy Center.
Karen holds an M.P.A. (Master of Public Administration) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an Honors B.A. in Sociology from Brown University. She was also selected as a fellow in the Children’s Defense Fund Emerging Leaders Project.
Alyssa is the Senior Research Project Coordinator for the International Arts + Mind Lab. She helps to coordinate and provide administrative and scientific oversight for several research projects.
Prior to joining the International Arts + Mind Lab, Alyssa worked as a psychology associate and research supervisor at the Center for Neurodevelopmental and Imaging Research within the Kennedy Krieger Institute. This role involved managing multiple studies investigating the underlying features and mechanisms of pediatric developmental disorders. Alyssa led the recruitment efforts for the lab as well as trained and supervised lab members in neuropsychological testing. She has also previously worked as a therapist within the Baltimore City school system.
Alyssa holds a Master of Science Degree in Clinical Psychology from Loyola University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology also from Loyola University.
Keely Mason is a Senior Research and Education Associate for the International Arts + Mind Lab. Her work supports research, outreach and education initiatives in the Lab.
Keely brings experience from the field of arts in health where she has worked as an artist, administrator, educator and researcher for leading arts in health initiatives and institutions including the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network. She also serves as adjunct faculty in the UF Center for Arts in Medicine online graduate program.
Keely holds a Master of Arts (MA) in Arts in Medicine, a Bachelor of Arts in Dance, and a Bachelor of Science in Health Education from the University of Florida. She has trained, taught and performed as a dancer for over 15 years, and is an active member in the dance community with a deep commitment to the use of creativity to promote wellbeing.
Samuel Garrett is a composer and musicologist who is committed to advancing knowledge of how aesthetic experiences influence human well-being. At the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab), he oversees the development of the neuroaesthetics community database, helping to map stakeholders in the field.
He also serves as project manager for the NeuroArts Blueprint initiative, a partnership between IAM Lab and the Aspen Institute dedicated to advancing the science of the arts, health and well-being.
Samuel holds a Masters in Music in composition and musicology from The Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
Trace Carter is the Communications and Administrative Specialist for the International Arts + Mind Lab. Since 2018, she has worked in donor analytics and communication, data management, and event coordination for a family services non-profit on the West Coast and continues to hold her position with that agency. She started freelance communications and consulting work in 2022 for Golden Garuda Retreats and later for the launch of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us (written by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross), managing the social media, newsletter lists, event support, and public correspondence. Before that she worked in various administrative roles, streamlining office operations and managing organization-wide processes.
Trace graduated from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC with a BA in Sociology/Anthropology. Born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains by musicians and artists, she is passionate about communities that are steeped in traditional art forms.
Zoë Lintzeris has over 15 years of professional experience working in the arts, journalism, and research fields.
As a certified arts in health specialist and consultant, Zoë teaches visual art techniques and guided meditations for private clients, nonprofits, and healthcare organizations throughout the United States. She designs customized learning and therapeutic experiences for a variety of populations, including those experiencing addiction, bereavement, cancer, depression, fine motor skill issues, and MS. She was a featured roundtable speaker at the 2022 Americans for the Arts conference, and a presenter at The 6th International Teaching Artist Conference (ITAC6). She speaks on the value of arts and wellness for seminars and panels, and is developing the world’s first arts in health residency and retreat space in Greece.
Zoë is also a visual artist whose practice explores the emotional psyche of the human condition. Her paintings and photographs have been featured in group exhibitions throughout the United States, and in solo shows in New York City.
She received her graduate certificate in Arts in Health from Lesley University, and holds a BA in Journalism as well as minoring in Studio Arts from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Cherry Ng is a Graduate Research Assistant for the International Arts + Mind Lab. As an advocate for mental health and wellness, Cherry is concurrently pursuing her M.Sc in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Johns Hopkins University. She holds a B.Sc in Anatomy and Cell Biology and a minor in English Literature from McGill University.
Prior to joining the IAM Lab, Cherry’s research interests centered on human development and mental health. She interned at St. Michael’s Hospital, where her research focused on developing a zebrafish model of treatment-resistant depression using CRISPR/cas9 technology. In 2018, she was selected to be a summer research intern at the Institute of Veterinary Bacteriology in Switzerland under the mentorship of Dr. Nina Wolfrum with scholarship support from The University of Zürich.
Cherry’s passion for mental health and wellness is also driven by her experience as a hospital chaplain at Loyola University Medical Center in Illinois, a role through which she learned to assess the theological and psycho-social concerns of people in crisis. In her free time, she can be found walking her cat, dabbling in photography, and hiking in mountains.
Clara Sandu is a Research Assistant with the International Arts + Mind Lab at John’s Hopkins University. She has conducted research in a range of disciplines including cognitive/behavioral psychology, clinical neuroscience, neuroimaging, pain/neuroinflammation, and neuroaesthetics. Clara graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience and a B.A. in Studio Art from Bucknell University in 2020 and is broadly interested in topics relating to empathy/mentalizing, embodied cognition, sensation/perception, subjectivity, and creativity.
Clara has contributed to publications as a co-author and graphic designer in Current Topics in Behavioral Neuroscience, Frontiers in Psychology, PAIN, and Neuroscience Bulletin. As an Arts Merit Scholar at Bucknell, she explored notions of liminal states and growth through discomfort in her hyperrealistic oil portraiture series prepared for Simulacra, a 2020 exhibition at the Samek Art Museum. While her broader research interests lie in cognitive, behavioral, and social neuroscience, Clara draws upon her lifelong experience as an artist in her pursuit of a nuanced understanding of the arts’ impact on health and wellbeing.
Melanie Branagan is the Administrator of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience and the International Arts + Mind Lab. She helps to manage the financial reporting, human resources, and all administrative operations.
Melanie has over 20 years of experience as an administrative professional for the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University. These roles involved management of several research and clinical programs.
Melanie holds an MBA from Strayer University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.
Janice E. Clements, Ph.D., is a professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology, the Mary Wallace Stanton Professor for Faculty Affairs and has served as the Vice Dean for Faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine since 2000, where she oversees all policies and programs related to faculty appointments and promotions as well as faculty development.
Her research focuses on lentiviruses and their role in chronic neurological disease. She developed the first molecular and biochemical tools to study lentivirus molecular biology and was the first to characterize the unusual genome of the lentiviruses. She was also the first scientist to report that HIV is a lentivirus.
As director of the Retrovirus Laboratory, she and her team focus on the molecular virology and pathogenesis of lentivirus infections with emphasis on animal models of AIDS dementia and central nervous system (CNS) disease. Recent discoveries include the use of minocycline, a common antibiotic often used against acne, to protect against viral HIV-related cognitive disease.
Dr. Clements received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Maryland. She completed two postdoctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins—one in molecular biology and virology and the other in neurology. Dr. Clements joined the Johns Hopkins faculty as an assistant professor of neurology in 1979 and then the faculty of the Division of Comparative Medicine in 1988. She was promoted to professor in 1990.
Dr. Jeffrey Rothstein is the director of the Pedersen Brain Science Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research focuses on neuromuscular diseases, with a particular focus on Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Other clinical areas relevant to his laboratory-based research include idiopathic stupor, epilepsy and motor neuron degeneration.
His laboratory includes more than 20-post doctoral fellows, neurology residents, neuromuscular and epilepsy fellows, undergraduate students, technicians and ALS clinic staff. He has been the principal and/or local investigator in eight national or international trials in ALS. He is the author of more than 100 articles on basic and clinical neuroscience. Dr. Rothstein’s laboratory research is funded through the National Institutes of Health, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the ALS Association and Project A.L.S.
Dr. Rothstein received a master’s degree in neurochemistry from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics from the University of Illinois Health Sciences Center. He then obtained his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He went on to complete an internship at the University of North Carolina Memorial Hospital before joining The Johns Hopkins for his residency. While at Johns Hopkins, he became chief resident in neurology and completed his fellowship in neuromuscular disease.
Marilyn is a philanthropist and active fundraiser for organizations in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas. She is a founding member of a high-impact philanthropic organization that unites corporate leaders, donors and volunteers to break the cycle of poverty by improving education and health care. The organization has raised more than $15 million, including $2 million to build a new Fisher House on the grounds of the Washington, D.C., Veterans Medical Center to help veterans and their families overcome bodily injuries and brain trauma, especially PTSD. This work inspired her to approach Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to create an institutional home for the brain science community to collaborate and create innovative new discoveries and treatments for the brain.
As the founder of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Pedersen Brain Science Institute (PBSi), Marilyn encouraged researchers to explore the connection between aesthetics and the brain. This became a formal line of study in 2015 with the creation of the International Arts + Mind Lab. As a member of the executive advisory board and co-chair of the IAM Lab, Marilyn continues to pursue the connections and healing properties of the arts and the brain. Marilyn graduated magna cum laude from George Washington University with a degree in art history. Marilyn received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Johns Hopkins University. She served on the Walters Art Museum board of trustees for 15 years. She has three daughters and lives in McLean, Virginia.
Maggie has been an owner and standing Board Member of Innoviss Inc. since 2007. As the Executive Chair, Maggie supports strategic and financial operations and has more than 15 years of business, marketing and IT industry experience, previously holding positions with Johns Hopkins University and ManTech. Maggie has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Richard Huganir is a professor of neuroscience, biological chemistry and pharmacology and molecular science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Huganir’s research focuses on molecular mechanisms that modulate the communication between neurons in the brain.
He serves as the director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. Huganir and his team focus their efforts on researching the mechanisms that underlie the regulation of the glutamate receptors, the major excitatory neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. These receptors are neurotransmitter-dependent ion channels that allow ions to pass through the neuronal cell membrane, resulting in the excitation of neuronal activity.
He received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Vassar College and earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry, molecular and cell biology from Cornell University. He was a postdoctoral fellow with the Nobel Laureate, Dr. Paul Greengard, at Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Huganir then moved to the Rockefeller University where he was an assistant professor of molecular and cellular neurobiology from 1984-1988. Dr. Huganir joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1988.
Dr. Huganir received the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience and the Santiago Grisolia Award, among others. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Huganir has published over 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Jenny Warren began her design career at Parsons School of Design in New York City where she interned with Clodagh, one of the first designers to successfully bring the art of Feng Shui to the mainstream. After graduating from Parsons, Jenny continued her career at David Howell Design, expanding her experience in both residential and commercial design and further influencing her underlying belief that your space, both work and home, can have a mind-altering impact on your life experience. Since interior design was her second career, she decided to combine her previous experience in marketing and business with her new love of design by opening up VEGA, a unique home furnishings store in Washington, D.C.
Jenny graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s in communications in 1988. She received an associate’s degree in Interior Design from Parson School of Design in 1994.
Marilyn Albert is Professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Director of the Division of Cognitive Neuroscience. Dr. Albert focuses on the cognitive and brain changes associated with aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Her work has delineated the cognitive changes associated with aging and early AD, along with potential methods of early identification of AD. She has also identified lifestyle factors that promote maintenance of mental abilities with advancing age.
Dr. Albert’s research currently focuses on the early identification of AD, and potential ways of monitoring the progression of disease to permit early intervention.
Dr. Albert received her doctorate in physiological psychology from McGill University in Montreal and completed a fellowship in neuropsychology at Boston University School of Medicine. She served on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School for over 22 years.
Dr. Amy Bastian is the Chief Science Officer at Kennedy Krieger Institute, a role in which she identifies and promotes new directions for breakthrough research into the developing brain, spinal cord and musculoskeletal system. She is also director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory that studies the neural control of human movement. Dr. Bastian is a professor of neuroscience and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
After completing her undergraduate degree in physical therapy at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Bastian completed her doctoral degree in movement science at Washington University in 1995 and a post-doctoral fellowship in neuroscience at Washington University under Dr. W.T. Thach.
Dr. Bastian’s research uses computerized movement tracking techniques, non-invasive brain stimulation, novel devices and robotics to control walking and reaching movements in people with and without neurological damage. She has co-authored more than 100 scientific papers and numerous book chapters and served as chair of the Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Study Section at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is currently the primary investigator on two R01 grants from the NIH, one of which received a prestigious Javits award.
Julio Bermudez has served as the director of the Sacred Space and Cultural Studies graduate program at the Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning since 2010. He has been teaching architectural design, theory and representation for nearly 30 years. Dr. Bermudez’s interests are focused in the relationship between architecture, culture and spirituality through the lens of phenomenology and neuroscience. He has widely lectured, led symposia and published in this area, including “Transcending Architecture: Contemporary Views on Sacred Space” (CUA Press, 2015) and “Architecture, Culture and Spirituality” (Routledge, 2015). His current research uses neuroscience to study contemplative built environments. Dr. Bermudez is the president of the Architecture, Culture and Spirituality Forum, an international organization that he co-founded in 2007.
Stephen Campbell is the Henry and Elizabeth Wiesenfeld Professor of the History of Art at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Campbell is a specialist in Italian art of the 15th and 16th centuries. His work has focused on the artistic culture of North Italian cities, court artists such as Ferrarese painter Cosmè Tura, the representation of Judaism in Christian art, the rise of mythological painting and the history of collecting. He has also published articles on aspects of Giorgione, the Carracci, Agnolo Bronzino, Michelangelo and Rosso Fiorentino.
His are recent books The Endless Periphery: Towards a Geography of Art in Lorenzo Lotto’s Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019) and Andrea Mantegna: Humanist Aesthetics, Faith, and the Force of Images (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020).
Dr. Campbell was educated at Trinity College, Dublin (B.A. 1985), the University of North Carolina (M.A. 1987) and Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D., 1993). Before joining the faculty of Johns Hopkins in 2002, he taught at Case Western Reserve University, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1993, he published a book for a general audience on the Great Irish Famine of 1847-1851, with a preface by President of Ireland Mary Robinson. In 2002 he was guest curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, for the exhibition Cosmè Tura: Painting and Design in Renaissance Ferrara.
Dr. Campbell has held post-doctoral fellowships at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti in Florence and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery, Washington.
Anjan Chatterjee is a Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Architecture and the founding Director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics. He is a member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Center for Neuroscience and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Haverford College and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his neurology residency at the University of Chicago. Dr. Chatterjee’s clinical practice focuses on patients with cognitive disorders, and his research addresses questions about spatial cognition and language, attention, neuroethics and neuroaesthetics.
Dr. Chatterjee wrote The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and Enjoy Art and co-edited Neuroethics in Practice: Mind, Medicine, and Society and The Roots of Cognitive Neuroscience: Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychology. He has served on the editorial boards of many journals, including American Journal of Bioethics: Neuroscience; Behavioural Neurology; Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychology. He was awarded the Geschwind Prize in Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology by the American Academy of Neurology and the Arnheim Prize for contribution to Psychology and the Arts by the American Psychological Association.
He is a founding member of the Board of Governors of the Neuroethics Society, the past President of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, and the past President of the Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology Society. He serves on the board of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and has served on the boards of Haverford College, the Norris Square Neighborhood Project and the Associated Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
Dr. Ed Connor is a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has served as director of the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute since 2007. His research analyzes how the brain transforms visual images into knowledge about the world.
Dr. Connor earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins in 1989. After postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology and Washington University, he joined the Johns Hopkins Neuroscience Department in 1996.
The Connor lab has shown how populations of neurons in higher-level visual regions of the brain encode information about the world of objects and environments, including three-dimensional object structure, object value, and the large-scale spatial structure of environments.
Dr. Gül Dölen is a Professor in the University of California at Berkeley’s Department of Psychology, and the Renee & U.S. Marine LCpl Bob Parsons Endowed Chair in Psychology, Psychedelics, and Neuroscience, a member of the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics as well as the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr Dölen also maintains an Adjunct Professorship in Neuroscience and Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine.
Dölen’s studies in animal models, including mouse and octopus, suggest that psychedelics may operate in the brain by reopening “critical periods,” finite windows of opportunity that enable more rapid learning. Her work with the two-spot octopus demonstrated that doses of the psychedelic chemical MDMA caused this normally antisocial animal to display more prosocial, playful behavior. MDMA also activates a critical period for brain plasticity in mice. Research in Dölen’s lab has shown that other psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin and ketamine, can reopen a critical period for social reward learning.
Dr. Dölen is the recipient of several prestigious awards including: the Joukowsky Family Foundation Outstanding Dissertation Award, the Conquer Fragile X Rising Star Award, the Angus MacDonald Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the Society for Social Neuroscience Early Career Award, the Searle Scholars Award, and the Johns Hopkins University President’s Frontier Award.
Sarah Williams Goldhagen, Ph.D. (Columbia University) is a former Harvard professor, and writes about architecture, landscape, and cities and their effect on human health and wellbeing. Her book, Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives (HarperCollins; also published in Chinese, Russian, and Korean) won a Nautilus Book Award in 2017 for its contribution to social and environmental justice, and Goldhagen was an opening-night Spotlight speaker at the AIA National Convention that same year.
A frequent keynote speaker, Goldhagen has won numerous awards and grants (including three from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts) for her criticism and writing on modern and contemporary architecture and landscapes, with an emphasis on their psychological and cognitive effects on people. She has published opinion pieces in The New York Times, served as Contributing Editor for Art in America and Architectural Record, and was The New Republic’s architecture critic for nearly a decade.
Goldhagen also has had a distinguished academic career with scholarly publications that include Louis Kahn’s Situated Modernism (Yale University) and Anxious Modernisms: Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture (co-edited with Réjean Legault, MIT Press) as well as numerous essays and reviews in premier architecture- and art-historical journals. Currently she writes essays, is finishing a memoir, works closely with the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), and consults with major companies on strategies for promoting and implementing human-centered design.
As Associate Dean for Innovation in the Arts and Health at the Peabody Institute, Sarah Hoover is responsible for advancing initiatives that link the performing arts and health within the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and entities within the university and Baltimore community. Since her arrival at Peabody, Hoover has advocated for the health of Peabody’s musicians and dancers through developing curriculum and co-curricular programs to prevent injury and optimize performance, facilitated the creation of the Peabody Clinic for Performing Artists, and supported the start-up of a research lab in performance science. With partners at Johns Hopkins Medicine and in collaboration with Peabody’s first Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Dr. Kris Chesky, she is laying the groundwork for a transdisciplinary convergence at the intersection of performing arts and health, encompassing research, clinical care, education, and advocacy to advance health in and through the performing arts.
Hoover’s research in the field of arts in health has led to the development of bedside and lobby music programs at Johns Hopkins Hospital as well as creative aging residencies and sensory-friendly concerts. She has launched Peabody Prescribe, a community arts entity within the Preparatory offering arts experiences to support health and well-being developed in collaboration with researchers and clinicians from Johns Hopkins Medicine. Along with her book, Music as Care: Artistry in the Hospital Environment, the leading text for preparing classically-trained musicians to work in hospitals, these clinical and community programs build educational and experiential career pathways for artists in health contexts. To advance professionalization of the field, Hoover serves as a member of the board of the National Organization for Arts in Health, where she is leading the development of a certification process for artists in healthcare.
Dr. Steven Holochwost is Principal and Director of Research for Youth & Families at WolfBrown. He works with programs designed to improve the lives of vulnerable children and youth. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lehman College, part of the City University of New York. There, his research focuses on the effects of environment, particularly poverty and parenting. He considers the voluntary forms of self-regulation (e.g., executive functions) in childhood. He also examines the involuntary activity of neurophysiological systems that support self-regulatory abilities.
Dr. Steven Holochwost’s work at WolfBrown examines the efficacy of educational interventions for children in poverty. The common thread running through both these lines of work is the need to understand how poverty impacts child development—and how programs that expand educational opportunities for children can mitigate those effects. He assesses the impacts of arts education programs on under-served children and youth and also addresses how instrumental music education can foster basic cognitive skills among children in poverty.
His areas of specialization include the use of mixed quantitative and qualitative methods and the application of advanced analytics to longitudinal data. His work has been supported by the National Endowment for Arts, the US Department of Education, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Penn, Mellon, Arnold, and Buck Family Foundations.
As Associate Director of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford University, Dr. Natasha Hussain plays a pivotal role in guiding the strategic direction of the initiative. In this capacity, she is responsible for conceptualizing and implementing transformative initiatives, overseeing program operations, and fostering a collaborative environment that integrates community engagement with cutting-edge research. Natasha’s leadership encompasses a broad spectrum of responsibilities aimed at advancing the initiative’s mission of supporting human brain function, health, and longevity. Her commitment to excellence and strategic innovation contributes to the initiative’s position at the forefront of neuroscientific research and community impact.
Dr. Hussain received a B.Sc. from McGill University in Montreal, QC, Canada where she completed a double major in biology and environmental science. She continued in her doctoral training at McGill University’s Montreal Neurological Institute, where she earned a Ph.D. in Neurology and Neurosurgery. Her expertise in biochemistry, molecular and cell biology has contributed to significant discoveries in neuroscience, focusing on presynaptic endocytic recycling, Rho GTPases-mediated signal transduction, and the functional characterization of proteins linked to Down’s syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology.
During her postdoctoral training at MIT in the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory (Cambridge, MA), Dr. Hussein delved into molecular components of synaptic plasticity. Her research also explored the cell biology and physiology of a family of protein kinases genetically associated with psychiatric disorders, unraveling their roles in synapse development and function.
Prior to her role at the Knight Initiative, Natasha served as the Scientific Director of the Johns Hopkins Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute, fostering transdisciplinary research collaboration among neuroscientists, engineers, and data scientists.
Dr. John Krakauer is a Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Krakauer’s clinical interest is stroke, including ischemic cerebrovascular disease, subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhage, arteriovenous malformation, cerebral vasculitis, cerebral aneurysm, and venous and sinus thrombosis. His lab uses psychophysics, modeling, functional brain imaging, non-invasive brain stimulation, and studies in neurological patients to characterize the modular architecture of human motor control and human motor learning.
He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree from Cambridge University, and his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. After completing an internship in Internal Medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, he returned to Columbia University for his residency in Neurology at the Neurological Institute of New York. He subsequently completed a research fellowship in motor control in the Center of Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia and a clinical fellowship in stroke at the Neurological Institute at Columbia University Medical Center.
Barbara Landau has been the Dick and Lydia Todd Professor of Cognitive Science since 2001, was the Vice Provost for Faculty from 2011-2014, and was the Director of the Science of Learning Institute from 2013-2018. Landau is interested in human knowledge of language and space, and the relationships between these two foundational systems of knowledge. Her central interests concern the nature of the cognitive “primitives” that are in place during early development, and support our remarkable capacity to recognize objects, move around space in a directed fashion, and talk about our spatial experience.
Dr. Landau’s research draws on a variety of approaches, including traditional experimental and linguistic methods adapted for young children. Although much of her work concerns the mechanisms of normal development, she is also interested in unusual cases of development, which can shed light on normal development and cognition.
Dr. Landau is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Cognitive Science Society, and several other organizations. She was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2009.
Rong Li is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Whiting School of Engineering. She is also the director of the Center for Cell Dynamics in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. She is a leader in understanding cellular asymmetry, division and evolution, and specifically, in how eukaryotic cells establish their distinct morphology and organization in order to carry out their specialized functions.
Dr. David J. Linden is a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research examines the cellular substrates of memory storage, the molecular basis of addiction, and recovery of function following brain injury among other topics.
Dr. Linden has authored or co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and has written two neuroscience books for general audiences. In 2010, Dr. Linden was recognized as a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Frederick Marks has been a licensed architect for more than 30 years with a planning and design specialty in healthcare and laboratory science facilities. He holds degrees in architecture and business administration with a major in real estate and urban land economics. Marks is a founding Board member of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) and has served as its Chief Operating Officer and past-president.
Dr. Justin McArthur is nationally and internationally recognized for his work in studying the natural history, development and treatment of HIV infection, multiple sclerosis and other neurological infections and immune-mediated neurological disorders. Dr. McArthur has also developed a technique to use cutaneous nerves to study sensory neuropathies, including those associated with chemotherapy, HIV and diabetes.
Dr. McArthur is the director the of the Johns Hopkins/National Institute of Mental Health Research Center for Novel Therapeutics of HIV-associated Cognitive Disorders. The Center is comprised of an experienced interdisciplinary research team who have pooled their talents to study the nature of HIV-associated cognitive disorders. Their aim is to translate discoveries of the pathophysiological mechanisms into novel therapeutics for HIV-associated dementia (HIV-D).
Dr. McArthur received his medical degree from Guys Hospital Medical School in London, UK. He then completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and stayed with Johns Hopkins to complete a residency in neurology and achieve his master’s in public health. He is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Department of Neurology and holds the John W. Griffin Professorship in Neurology established in 2015 by Jeffrey and Harriet Legum. In April 2017 Dr. McArthur was elected to the Association of American Physicians.
Mary Ann Mears is a sculptor who has been commissioned to create site-specific art for public sites across a number of states including Maryland, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
Mears is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate in the Fine Arts from University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). In 2009, she received the Distinguished Service to the Arts Award from the National Governors Association. She believes that it is critically important for each person to have access to meaningful and high quality arts experiences throughout their lives. Her achievements include being a founder of Maryland Art Place and helping to craft and successfully lobby for Maryland’s Public Art Bill. She is a trustee of Maryland Citizens for the Arts. Mary Ann is the founder of Arts Education in Maryland Schools (AEMS) Alliance. She serves on the Maryland State Department of Education’s Fine Arts Education Advisory Panel.
Michael I. Miller is the Bessie Darling Massey Professor and Director of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He is also co-director of the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute. As a biomedical engineer who specializes in data science, Dr. Miller is pioneering cutting-edge technologies in computational medicine to understand and diagnose neurodegenerative diseases. His research focuses on the functional and structural characteristics of the human brain in health and disease, including Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and epilepsy.
By developing new tools to analyze patient brain scans, derived from advanced medical imaging technologies, Dr. Miller aims to predict the risk of developing neurological disorders years before the onset of clinical symptoms. His lab is currently devising cloud-based methods to build and share libraries of brain images—and the algorithms used to understand them—associated with neuropsychiatric illness. Dr. Miller’s research is highly translational, and he has co-founded four start-up companies in the past decade.
Dr. Miller has co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, as well as two highly cited textbooks on random point processes and computational anatomy. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the national Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Biomedical Engineering Thesis Award, the Johns Hopkins Paul Ehrlich Graduate Student Thesis Award, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Young Investigator Award. He was named an inaugural Johns Hopkins University Gilman Scholar in 2011 for demonstrating a distinguished record of research, teaching, and service. He is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering Society.
Itai Palti is a practicing architect, researcher, and multidisciplinary artist focusing on the relationship between people and place. He is Director of Hume, a Science-Informed architecture and urban design practice.
In 2015, Palti founded the Conscious Cities movement; a new field of research and practice for building environments that are aware and responsive, using data analysis, AI, tech, and science-informed design. For his work in advancing changes in the design profession, Palti was named by Metropolis Magazine as one of 2020’s ‘Game Changers’ in transformative ideas in Health, Social Justice, Technology, and Urbanism.
Palti is the Founder, past Director, and current Advisor to The Centre for Conscious Design. Carrying out thought leadership and advisory roles in a number of other research and policy bodies, he contributes to strategies that focus on systems change and the promotion of design as a socially conscious profession. His work and writing has been featured internationally and he is a regular speaker at events focused on the built environment and human impact.
Dr. Alexander Pantelyat cares for patients with movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and related syndromes, essential tremor, dystonia, chorea and normal pressure hydrocephalus. He also provides botulinum toxin injections for movement disorders and is involved in deep brain stimulation programming and intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring. He is also the founder and co-director of the Center for Music & Medicine.
His research explores atypical parkinsonian disorders, such as dementia with Lewy bodies, progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal syndrome/degeneration and multiple system atrophy; cognitive aspects of movement disorders; and music-based rehabilitation of neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Pantelyat earned his medical degree from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, where he was elected a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and received the Matthew T. Moore Prize in Neurology. He completed his residency training in Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a fellowship in movement disorders at the University of Pennsylvania/Philadelphia VA Medical Center.
Amy Shelton is the Executive Director of the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) at Johns Hopkins University. She designs, delivers, and studies innovative educational models and approaches intended to support a diverse community of advanced learners, their families and educators, and other collaborators in the field.
Before becoming CTY’s executive director, she served as the center’s senior director for research and founded the CTY Baltimore Emerging Scholars Program. Dr. Shelton previously led CTY in an interim capacity, navigating the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges it posed for CTY, its students and their families. A professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education, she has held joint appointments in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and served on the steering committee for the university-wide Science of Learning Institute.
Before joining CTY, Dr. Shelton served on the faculty in JHU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Her research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience focuses on spatial skills, individual differences, and mechanisms of learning, couched in the broad context of understanding the characterization and needs of each individual learner. More recently her work has focused on how these fundamental skills can be used to identify and characterize students’ educational needs.
Dr. Marshall G. Hussain Shuler is an associate professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research examines the neural mechanisms of reward-dependent learning.
He received a B.A. with distinction in neuroscience from the University of Virginia, where he was a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Apprentice. He completed his Ph.D. in Neurobiology at Duke University and received a National Research Service fellowship there. He joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins as an associate professor in 2008 after completing his post-doctoral research at MIT as a Howard Hughes fellow.
Dr. Hussain Shuler has received several awards and distinctions, and has presented his work at several national and international conferences and seminars. He has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications and one book chapter. He is a member of the Society of Neuroscience.
Since 2004, Mr. Terkowitz has served as a general partner at ABS Capital Partners L.P., a venture capital firm. Prior to ABS Capital, Mr. Terkowitz was an officer of The Washington Post Company (now Graham Holdings Company), a diversified media and education company, and the founder and CEO of, among others, DigitalInk Co. (now Washingtonpost.com) and Kenexa BrassRing, Inc. From 1998 to 2004, Mr. Terkowitz served on the board of directors of MicroStrategy Incorporated, a publicly traded business intelligence software company. Mr. Terkowitz currently serves on the board of directors of several privately held companies. Mr. Terkowitz is also on the board of Cornell’s for-profit online education business, e-Cornell. Mr. Terkowitz serves on the not-for-profit Board of Governors of the Johns Hopkins Packard Center and Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute. Mr. Terkowitz holds an A.B. in Chemistry from Cornell University and an M.S. in Chemical Physics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Elizabeth Tolbert is on the faculty of the Musicology Department at the Johns Hopkins Peabody Institute. Dr. Tolbert earned a bachelor’s in music from Florida State University, a master’s in music from University of Colorado, Boulder, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Tolbert’s awards include Mellon Fellowship, Fulbright grant for study in Finland, NEH fellowship and ACLS grant. Her recent publications have appeared in “Embodied Voices” (Cambridge University Press), World of Music, Notes, Ethnomusicology, and Yearbook for Traditional Music. Tolbert has formerly served as faculty at New York University, UCLA, and Northwestern University. Tolbert’s research interests in ethnomusicology include intercultural approaches to aesthetics, music theory, gender, ritual and music cognition.
Shea Trahan is a licensed architect and holds a leadership position in the New Orleans based firm of Trapolin-Peer Architects. Trahan has authored a body of research into Resonant Form, an investigation into the intersection of architecture, sound, and the search for enlightenment. Building from an initial conception as a meditation chamber specifically designed for chanting, the project incorporates investigations into form, acoustics, physics, neurology, material systems, physiology, and mysticism.
Trahan holds degrees in architecture from Tulane University and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette along with a certification in the field of Neuroscience for Architecture from the NewSchool of Architecture and Design. His work has been featured internationally and has been included in publications and conferences including TEDx Vermilion Street, Architect Magazine, ArchDaily, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, and Creating Sensory Spaces: The Architecture of the Invisible. He currently serves on the board of directors for the U.S. Green Building Council Louisiana Chapter. His professional work focuses on theater and museum projects, adaptive reuse of historic buildings, evidence-based design, and sustainability efforts in architectural practice.
Gary Vikan was Director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore from 1994 to 2013; from 1985 to 1994, he was the museum’s Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Medieval Art. Before coming to Baltimore, Vikan was Senior Associate at Harvard’s Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. A native of Minnesota, he received his B.A. from Carleton College and his Ph.D. from Princeton University; he is a graduate of the Harvard Program for Art Museum Directors and the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program.
Vikan serves on the Advisory Council on Culture and the Arts of the Salzburg Global Seminar. In retirement, Vikan writes, lectures, and teaches. His books include From the Holy Land to Graceland (2012), Sacred and Stolen: Confessions of a Museum Director (SelectBooks, September 2016), The Holy Shroud: A Brilliant Hoax in the Time of the Black Death, (2020), My Father Took Pictures (2021), and, with Elana Klausner Vikan, Postcards from Behind the Iron Curtain (2023).
Dr. Xiaoquin Wang is a professor of biomedical engineering, neuroscience and otolaryngology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He serves as director of the Tsinghua-Johns Hopkins Joint Center for Biomedical Research in Beijing, China. His research aims to understand brain mechanisms responsible for auditory perception and vocal communication in a naturalistic environment.
Dr. Wang received his B.S. in electrical engineering at Sichuan University in Sichuan, China, and his M.S. in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He completed his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins, and subsequently conducted a postdoctoral fellowship in neurophysiology at the University of California in San Francisco. He joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1995 as an associate professor, became an assistant professor in 2002, and accepted the title of full professor in 2002.
Dr. Wang has won several awards and NIH grants for his research, and currently serves as principal investigator of the Laboratory of Auditory Neurophysiology in the Department of Otolaryngology. He has served on the editorial review boards for more than 20 academic journals in the field, has authored or co-authored several dozen peer-reviewed publications and has presented his work nationally and internationally.
Susan Forscher Weiss is the past chair of musicology at the Peabody Institute and holds a joint appointment in the Department of German and Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Weiss’s interests range from medieval and Renaissance music, music theory and musical instruments to music cognition and musical theatre. She has published widely with monographs, edited books, articles and reviews in a number of national and international journals. Awards include several from the National Endowment for the Humanities (including the most recent: NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant, Level II (2013-14). Dr. Weiss was the Robert Lehman Visiting Professor at the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti, 2014.
Andy Cunningham is the founder and president of Cunningham Collective, a marketing, brand and communication strategy firm dedicated to bringing innovation to market. She is also the author of “Get to Aha!: Discover Your Positioning DNA and Dominate Your Competition” (McGraw-Hill), and the host of the popular podcast Marketing Over Ice.
An entrepreneur at the forefront of marketing, branding and positioning, Andy Cunningham has played a key role in the launch of a number of new categories including video games; personal computers; desktop publishing; digital imaging; RISC microprocessors; software as a service; very light jets and clean tech investing. She is an expert in creating and executing marketing, branding and communication strategies that accelerate growth, increase shareholder value and advance corporate reputation.
Andy serves on the corporate boards of Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc. (bicycles and gear) and Finelite, Inc. (LED lighting systems). In addition, Andy sits on the nonprofit boards of The Aspen Institute; Menlo College; Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and ZERO1: The Art & Technology Network, an organization she founded in 2000 with the mission to shape the future at the intersection of art and technology.
Lama Surya Das is one of the foremost Western Buddhist meditation teachers and scholars. The Dalai Lama affectionately calls him “the American Lama.” Lama Surya has spent more than 45 years studying Zen, Vipassana, Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism with many of the great old masters of Asia, including some the Dalai Lama’s own teachers. He is an authorized lama in the Tibetan Buddhist order, a leading spokesperson for Buddhism and contemporary spirituality, a translator, poet, meditation master, chant master and social-spiritual activist.
Lama Surya Das is the author of the international bestselling Awakening trilogy: “Awakening the Buddha Within, “Awakening to the Sacred” and “Awakening the Buddhist Heart,” as well as his latest book “Make Me One with Everything: Buddhist Meditations to Awaken from the Illusion of Separation,” and 10 other books. In 1991 he established the Dzogchen Centers and Dzogchen Retreats and in 1993, with the Dalai Lama, he founded the Western Buddhist Teachers Network and regularly organizes its International Buddhist Teachers’ Conferences.
Lama Surya Das is a regular contributor at The Huffington Post and Elephant Journal, as well as writing his own blog Ask The Lama. Lama Surya can be followed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; his own podcast Awakening Now can be found on the Be Here Now Network. For more information on Surya, as well as his lecture and retreat schedule, visit www.surya.org.
Helene Ellison is Global Chair of Healthcare Practice at Burson-Marsteller, LLC. Helene is a 30-year veteran of the healthcare communications industry with expertise in corporate and product positioning, media relations, advocacy and issues management. She was appointed in 2010 to serve as chair of the agency’s global healthcare practice, comprising more than 200 executives worldwide including MDs, public health experts, former government officials, academics and former journalists.
She has led disease and treatment education programs in autoimmune diseases, dermatology, diabetes, gastroenterology, hepatitis, heart disease, hematology, infectious disease, neurology, obesity, oncology and women’s health. She has served on boards or worked pro bono for organizations including The American Liver Foundation, The American Stroke Association/Heritage Affiliate, The Foundation for Art and Healing and The Obesity Society. She currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Robert Packard Center for ALS research at Johns Hopkins University.
During her career, Helene has also led healthcare divisions within Edelman and Omnicom Networks. She was most recently founder, president and CEO of HealthStar Public Relations.
Helene holds a B.A. in Journalism from George Washington University. She lives in New York City.
Benj Pasek is an Oscar-winning lyricist and Tony-winning composer/lyricist, best known for his songwriting partnership with Justin Paul. Alongside Paul, Pasek won his first Tony Award in 2017 for the score of the Broadway musical, Dear Evan Hansen. This came only shortly after winning an Academy Award for the lyrics to “City of Stars” from the film La La Land.
Pasek holds a BFA in musical theater from the University of Michigan, where he first met fellow theater student Justin Paul during his first year. After discovering a shared interest, they quickly began working together. After graduating, Pasek found continued success. He worked for the Disney Channel along with his creative partner, and was later hired to write for the stage musical version of James and the Giant Peach.
Pasek debuted on Broadway in 2012, when he and Paul rewrote the score of A Christmas Story: The Musical. In 2013, the duo contributed multiple songs to the Broadway-themed ABC series Smash. Dear Evan Hansen opened on Broadway in December 2016. At the same time, La La Land’s soundtrack – which featured lyrics by Pasek & Paul – reached number two on the Billboard 200. The film won six Academy Awards, including Best Original Song for “City of Stars,” which Pasek co-wrote. In the meantime, Dear Even Hansen was a wild success. It received nine Tony nominations and won six, including Best Score and Best Musical.
In 2017, their music could be heard in the musical biopic The Greatest Showman, about P.T. Barnum.
Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek is the Stanley and Debra Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Temple University and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She is the recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Bronfenbrenner Award for Lifetime Contribution to Developmental Psychology in the Service of Science and Society as well as numerous other awards.
Kathy received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research in the areas of early language development and infant cognition has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and Human Development, and the Institute of Education Sciences resulting in 14 books and over 200 publications. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society and served as the Associate Editor of Child Development. She is the President and also served as treasurer of the International Association for Infant Studies. Her book, “Einstein Never used Flashcards: How children really learn and why they need to play more and memorize less,” (Rodale Books) won the prestigious Books for Better Life Award as the best psychology book in 2003. Her newest book, “Becoming Brilliant: What Science tells us about raising successful children” (Becoming-Brilliant.com) released in 2016, was on the NYTimes Best Seller List in both Education and Parenting.
Ivy Ross is the Vice President of Design for Hardware Products at Google. She and her team created the design language for Google’s hardware products that launched in 2017 that included phones, laptops, home and wearable products. Previously, she held executive positions ranging from head of product design and development to Chief Marketing Officer and presidencies with several companies, including Calvin Klein, Swatch, Coach, Mattel, Bausch & Lomb and Gap.
A renowned artist, her innovative metal work in jewelry is in the permanent collections of 12 international museums. A winner of the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts grant, Ivy has also received the Women in Design Award and Diamond International Award for her creative designs.
In addition to design, Ivy’s other passions are human potential and health. She has studied sound and vibration for 30 years and recently completed a master program in energy medicine. She believes in the combination of art and science to make magic happen and bring great ideas and brands to life.
Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the vice-chair of neurology and director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and serves as the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Tanzi co-discovered three of the first Alzheimer’s disease genes and has identified several others in the Alzheimer’s Genome Project, which he directs. He also discovered the Wilson’s disease gene and participated in the discovery of several other neurological disease genes. Most recently, he has used AD genes to create a three-dimensional human stem cell-derived neural culture system that recapitulates AD plaque and tangle pathology. Using this system, Dr. Tanzi is also developing therapeutics for AD including gamma secretase modulators and metal chaperones to lower beta-amyloid and tangle burden in the brain.
Dr. Tanzi has published nearly 500 research papers and has received the highest awards in his field, including the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award and Potamkin Prize. Most recently, he received the 2015 Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award and was named to the 2015 list of TIME100 Most Influential People in the World.
He co-authored the popular trade books “Decoding Darkness”, New York Times Bestseller, “Super Brain”, and “Super Genes” He was named by GQ magazine as a Rock Star of Science, and in his spare time, has played keyboards with the band Aerosmith, guitarist, Joe Perry, and singer, Chris Mann.