Heather Berlin

You are your brain. But how exactly do your thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sense of identity derive from this three-pound organ locked inside the black box of your skull? In her provocative talks, Dr. Heather Berlin takes audiences on a journey deep into the brain, the mind, and the self, as she reveals the startling and exciting recent findings of cutting-edge neuroscience. How does your brain accomplish spontaneous creativity? How much self-control or “free will” do we really have? And what does the future hold, once brains begin to interact with cognitive implants and “neural prosthetics”? Berlin will introduce you to your dynamic unconscious mind, a bigger part of “who you are” than you could ever guess.

In her PBS Nova show Your Brain, Berlin explores our biggest questions about our brains: why people see colors differently, how much of our decisions we actually control, and whether what we see is actually real. The two-part series touches on her lifelong quest to understand consciousness and what makes us human. In talks, she explains how neuroscience affects our everyday lives, and how understanding the workings of our brains can help us become the best, most creative, most productive versions of ourselves.

Committed to integrating the arts and sciences, science communication, and promoting women in STEM, Berlin is a founding committee member of the National Academy of Sciences’ “Science and Entertainment Exchange” Program, and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Committee on Science and Technology Engagement with the Public. She co-hosted StarTalk All-Stars with Neil deGrasse Tyson and has hosted series on PBS and Discovery Channel. She has made numerous media appearances including on the BBC, History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, NPR, and TEDx, and was featured in the documentary film Bill Nye: Science Guy. Berlin is an associate clinical professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and trained in clinical neuropsychology at Weill Cornell Medicine in the Department of Neurological Surgery. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and Master of Public Health from Harvard University.