PEM Contributors
Tedi Asher, Ph.D., is the Peabody Essex Museum’s in-house neuroscience researcher. She joined PEM in 2017 after completing her doctoral degree in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard Medical School. Her training as a basic biologist helps her appreciate how mechanistic understandings of living systems can meaningfully inform our lived experience. Her current work explores ways to combine understandings of the human nervous system with caring curiosity to connect across differences and build new understandings of individuals, communities and the human experience.
Trevor Smith leads PEM's Present Tense initiative (PTI), which celebrates the central role that creative expression plays in shaping our world today. This initiative explores ways in which creativity and cultural change emerge at the intersections of cultures, disciplines or technologies. In his capacity as Associate Director of Multisensory Experience, Smith aligns the museum’s curatorial activities with its neuroscience and visual literacy initiatives to create experiences that activate the senses and resonate with our communities. Read his full bio here.
Neuroscience Initiative Advisors
Bevil Conway, PhD, is an artist and neuroscientist. His work investigates the relationship between visual processing, visual art, perception, cognition, art practice, and art history. He runs the section on Sensation, Cognition and Action in the Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research at the National Eye Institute and National Institute of Mental Health. Previously, Conway was an associate professor of neuroscience at Wellesley College and a principal research scientist in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences program at MIT. He is the author of Neural Mechanisms of Color Vision. Conway’s artwork has been exhibited in a number of solo exhibitions and curated group shows, and is held in collections at the Harvard Art Museums and the National Institutes of Health as well as many private collections.
Nancy Etcoff, PhD, is an assistant clinical professor at the Harvard Medical School, a faculty member of the Harvard University Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative, and a psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital where she is the director of the Aesthetics and Well Being program. Etcoff conducts groundbreaking and highly cited scientific investigations in the psychology and neuroscience of emotion, and the psychology and biology of beauty and aesthetics. Her book, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, is the subject of a one-hour Discovery Channel documentary. Her 2004 TED Talk on happiness and its surprises has been viewed by over 1.4 million people.
Carl D. Marci, MD, is Chief Neuroscientist of Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience. He is a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty. Previously, he was Director of Social Neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital and visiting lecturer at the MIT Media Lab. Dr. Marci founded Innerscope Research, which was acquired by Nielsen in 2015. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed science journals, holds six patents, lectures nationally and internationally and is a pioneer in the new fields of social and consumer neuroscience.
Credits
The Neuroscience Initiative at PEM has been made possible by a generous grant from the Barr Foundation.
The Barr Foundation’s mission is to invest in human, natural, and creative potential, serving as thoughtful stewards and catalysts. Based in Boston, Barr focuses regionally, and selectively engages nationally, working in partnership with nonprofits, foundations, the public sector, and civic and business leaders to elevate the arts, advance solutions for climate change, and help all young people succeed. Founded in 1997, Barr now has assets of $1.8 billion, and has contributed more than $911 million to charitable causes. For more information, visit barrfoundation.org or follow @BarrFdn on Twitter and Facebook.