Social Psychologists Christina Maslach and Philip Zimbardo
Christina Maslach, a professor emerita of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, is best known for her pioneering research on job burnout. She has served as the chair of Berkeley’s Academic Senate, vice provost for undergraduate education and as the president of the Western Psychological Association. She has received national recognition for teaching.
Philip Zimbardo is a professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University. His research focused on individuation the negative forms of social influence (such as conformity, obedience and the bystander effect) and the use of time perspective as therapy after trauma. He is founder of the nonprofit Heroic Imagination Project, which teaches individuals to take courageous action in challenging situations.
Credit: Philip Zimbardo and Christina Maslach
XBiologists Alejandro Valenzuela and Christopher Anderson
Alejandro Valenzuela is conservation coordinator for Argentina's Southern Patagonia National Parks and a laboratory instructor at the National University of Tierra del Fuego. His research has focused on the ecology and management of invasive species in Patagonia, particularly American minks.
Christopher Anderson is a research scientist at the Austral Center for Scientific Research, an institute of the Argentine National Scientific and Technological Research Council, a professor at the Institute of Polar Sciences at the National University of Tierra del Fuego and an adjunct assistant professor of forest resources and environmental conservation at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His research has focused on the socio-ecological dimensions of invasive species in Patagonia, particularly American beavers.
Credit: Christopher Cheleuitte
XNeuroscientists Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik
Susana Martinez-Conde directs the Visual Neuroscience Research Laboratory at the Barrow Neurological Institute. She received her PhD at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Today, her research focuses on understanding the neurology behind our visual experience. With her husband, she co-authors the Scientific American blog Illusion Chasers. With Sandra Blakeslee, the couple wrote the international bestseller Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions. Martinez-Conde is the executive chair of the Neural Correlate Society, which she helped found with Macknik; they both help organize its annual “Best Illusion of the Year Contest.”
Stephen Macknik directs the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurophysiology at the Barrow Neurological Institute and is an adjunct professor at Arizona State University. He received his PhD in neurobiology in the laboratory of Margaret Livingstone at Harvard University. He directed a laboratory in the Department of Visual Science at University College London before moving to Arizona. For his collaborations with Martinez-Conde, see the previous bio.
Credit: Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde
XPhysician Scientists Carolina Montano and Andre Kydd
Carolina Montano is in her seventh year of the MD/PhD program at Johns Hopkins University. She is completing her doctorate in genetics. Her research has focused on studying epigenetic mechanisms in psychiatric disease and she hopes to focus on brain development after finishing her degree. She did her undergraduate work at Brigham Young University.
Andre Kydd is completing the MD/PhD program at Johns Hopkins University. He received his PhD in cellular and molecular medicine and his research focused on the epigenetics of cancer. He completed his undergraduate degree at Harvard University.
Credit: Andre Kydd and Carolina Montano
XSocial Neuroscientists John Cacioppo and Stephanie Cacioppo
Stephanie Cacioppo directs the High Performance Electrical Neuroimaging Laboratory at the University of Chicago’s Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, and is a research assistant professor there. Her research has focused on the neural bases for sexual desire and love, the brain mapping of social desire and other neurological studies of the continuum of social connection. She previously was an assistant professor at Syracuse University in New York State and at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
John Cacioppo helped found the field of social neuroscience. He directs the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, the university’s Social Neuroscience Laboratory and its doctoral program in social psychology; he is the university’s Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor. His research examines how social context affects genetic expression and how social isolation disrupts perception and alters behavior and physiology. He has co-authored several books about social neuroscience, including Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection.
Credit: Stephanie and John Cacioppo
XPaleontologists Thomas Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich
Thomas H. Rich is senior curator of vertebrate paleontology and palaeobotany at the Museum Victoria in Melbourne. With his wife he led a decade’s worth of excavations on Australia’s Victoria Coast that discovered several new species of dinosaurs as well as a handful of prehistoric birds and mammals. He later—after many years of searching—discovered an Australian Mesozoic mammal specimen. Dozens more have been found since. He has co-authored many books on paleontology.
Patricia Vickers-Rich is an emerita professor of paleontology at Monash University in Melbourne. In addition to her prominent work on dinosaurs and mammal fossil excavations on the Victoria Coast, Vickers-Rich has pursued research on the soft-bodied Precambrian creatures, which lived between 600 million and 540 million years ago and preceded the hard-bodied animals that appear in the fossil records. She has co-authored many books about prehistoric birds, dinosaurs and animals.
Credit: Thomas Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich
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