The Science of
Consciousness
Conference

Biography

Roger Penrose was born, August 8, 1931, in Colchester Essex UK. He earned a 1st class mathematics degree at University College London; a Ph.D. at Cambridge UK, and became assistant lecturer, Bedford College London, Research Fellow St John’s College, Cambridge (now Honorary Fellow), a post-doc at King’s College London, NATO Fellow at Princeton, Syracuse, and Cornell Universities, USA. He also served a 1-year appointment at University of Texas, became a Reader then full Professor at Birkbeck College, London, and Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics, Oxford University (during which he served several half-year periods as Mathematics Professor at Rice University, Houston, Texas). He is now Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor, Fellow, Wadham College, Oxford (now Emeritus Fellow). He has received many awards and honorary degrees, including knighthood, Fellow of the Royal Society and of the US National Academy of Sciences, the De Morgan Medal of London Mathematical Society, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, the Wolf Prize in mathematics (shared with Stephen Hawking), the Pomeranchuk Prize (Moscow), and one half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics, the other half shared by Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez. He has designed many non-periodic tiling patterns including a large paving at entrance of Andrew Wiles Mathematics Building, Oxford, and the Transbay Center, San Francisco, California. Sir Roger is widely acclaimed for fundamental advances in understanding the universe. His 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was bestowed for showing that black holes are robust predictions of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Roger has also proposed a solution to the measurement problem in quantummechanics (‘objective reduction’, ‘OR’), which he suggests is also the origin of consciousness, leading to a theory of brain function (‘orchestrated objective reduction’, ‘Orch OR’). And Roger’s concept of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (‘CCC’) posits a serial, eternal universe, with the Big Bang preceded by a previous aeon which had its own Big Bang, that aeon preceded by another and so on.

Biography

Deepak Chopra is a Consciousness Explorer, and a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is co-founder of DeepakChopra.ai, his AI twin and well-being advisor. He also co-founded Cyberhuman, a transformative suite of personalized health and well-being solutions. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is also an Honorary Fellow in Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He is the author of over 95 books, translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. For the last thirty years, Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution. His mission is to create a more balanced, peaceful, joyful and healthier world. Through his teachings, he guides individuals to embrace their inherent strength, wisdom, and potential for personal and societal transformation. In his latest book, *Digital Dharma* (Harmony/Rodale, 09/17/24), Chopra navigates the balance between technology and expanded awareness, explaining that while AI cannot duplicate human intelligence, it can vastly enhance personal and spiritual growth. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of their top 100 most influential people.”

Biography

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 100 scientific papers and 9 books, and the co-author of 6 books. His books have been published in 28 languages. He was among the top 100 Global Thought Leaders for 2013, as ranked by the Duttweiler Institute, Zurich, Switzerland's leading think tank. On ResearchGate, the largest scientific and academic online network, his Research Interest Score puts him in the top 4% of scientists. On Google Scholar, the many citations of his work give him a high h-index of 45, and an i10 index of 133. For ten years running he has been recognized as one of the 'most spiritually influential living people in the world' by Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine. His work has been featured in many magazines, newspapers and broadcast media, including New Scientist, The Guardian, Discover magazine, The Spectator, The Washington Post, Die Zeit and on BBC Radio and television.

Biography

Ivette Fuentes is a Professor of Physics at the School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Southampton. She is Fellow of the Emmy Network and Fellow by Special Election of Keble College, Oxford. Ivette obtained her PhD at Imperial College London (advisors: Peter L. Knight and Vlatko Vedral). Her postdoctoral experience includes a Glasstone Fellowship and Junior Research Fellowship (Mansfield College) at the University of Oxford and a position at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada. Ivette was Assistant Professor at UNAM México, Professor of Mathematical Physics at the School of Mathematical Sciences in Nottingham and Professor of Theoretical Quantum Optics at the University of Vienna. Other distinctions include an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Experienced Researchers) at the Technical University of Berlin and EPSRC Career Acceleration Fellowship, New Directions Award and Inspire Award. ​Her main research interest is understanding physics at scales where quantum theory and general relativity interplay.

Biography

Nassim Haramein is a Swiss born, 35-year veteran physicist working on a complex problem in physics — Unification Theory (the unification of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics). Haramein has researched fields of physics, mathematics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, biophysics, as well as cultural anthropology and archeology. These studies led to a unification theory published in scientific papers, and subsequent numerous patented inventions. Haramein has worked in collaborative efforts with some renown physicists and currently holds a director of research position at the International Space Federation organization which includes doctors in physics from some of the most reputable physics universities in the world. He has founded research organizations and successful corporations throughout the last two decades.

Biography

Dean Radin investigates phenomena in parapsychology. Following a bachelor and master's degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in educational psychology Radin worked at Bell Labs, as a researcher at Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh, and was a faculty member at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He then became Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Petaluma, California, USA, later becoming the president of the Parapsychological Association. He is also co-editor-in-chief of the journal Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing.

Biography

Federico Faggin is an Italian-American physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group during the first five years of Intel's microprocessor effort. Faggin also created, while working at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968, the self-aligned MOS (metal–oxide–semiconductor) silicon-gate technology (SGT), which made possible MOS semiconductor memory chips, CCD image sensors, and the microprocessor. After the 4004, he led development of the Intel 8008 and 8080, using his SGT methodology for random logic chip design, which was essential to the creation of early Intel microprocessors. He was co-founder (with Ralph Ungermann) and CEO of Zilog, the first company solely dedicated to microprocessors, and led the development of the Zilog Z80 and Z8 processors. He was later the co-founder and CEO of Cygnet Technologies, and then Synaptics. In 2010, he received the 2009 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor the United States confers for achievements related to technological progress. In 2011, Faggin founded the Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation to support the scientific study of consciousness at US universities and research institutes. In 2015, the Faggin Foundation helped to establish a $1 million endowment for the Faggin Family Presidential Chair in the Physics of Information at UC Santa Cruz to promote the study of "fundamental questions at the interface of physics and related fields including mathematics, complex systems, biophysics, and cognitive science, with the unifying theme of information in physics

Biography

Dr. Sabine Kastner studies the neural basis of visual perception, attention, and awareness using a translational approach that combines neuroimaging in humans and monkeys, intracranial electrophysiology and studies in patients with brain lesions. Dr. Kastner earned an M.D. degree from the Heinrich-Heine University of Düsseldorf (Germany) and received a Ph.D. degree in neurophysiology from the Georg-August University, Göttingen (Germany) under the mentorship of the late Otto Creutzfeldt. After a postdoc at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen and a lectureship in psychiatry, Dr. Kastner joined Leslie Ungerleider’s and Robert Desimone’s lab at the NIMH in Bethesda (1996-2000) before taking on a faculty position at Princeton, where she currently holds the rank of full professor. Dr. Kastner has served as the Scientific Director of Princeton’s neuroimaging facility since 2005. Dr. Kastner has published more than 150 articles in journals and books and has edited the Handbook of Attention (Oxford University Press, 2014). She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Society for Experimental Psychology, and the American Psychological Society, and a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Her groundbreaking contributions to the field of cognitive neuroscience were recognized with the George A. Miller Award in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2023 and the Young Investigator Award from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society in 2005.

Biography

Robert Lawrence Kuhn is a public intellectual; he is the creator, writer, host, and executive producer of Closer To Truth, the long-running PBS/public television series and leading global resource on Cosmos (cosmology/physics, philosophy of science), Life (philosophy of biology), Mind (consciousness, brain/mind, philosophy of mind), and Meaning (theism/atheism/agnosticism, global philosophy of religion, critical thinking). Kuhn’s comprehensive review article on theories of consciousness – “A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications” – is published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology (August 2024, pp. 28-169). In its review, IAI News says, “Kuhn has written perhaps the most comprehensive article on the landscape of theories of consciousness in recent memory.” Kuhn has written or edited over 30 books, including The Mystery of Existence: Why is there Anything At All? (with John Leslie); Closer To Truth: Challenging Current Belief; Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future; The Library of Investment Banking; How China’s Leaders Think (featuring President Xi Jinping); The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin (China’s best-selling book in 2005 and in December 2022); and "The Origin and Significance of Zero: An Interdisciplinary Perspective” (with Peter Gobets). Dr. Kuhn is chairman of The Kuhn Foundation. He has a BA in Human Biology (Johns Hopkins), PhD in Anatomy/Brain Research (UCLA), and SM (MBA) in Management (MIT).

Biography

David del Rosario is a researcher, science communicator, and director of the Institute of Advanced Neuroscience of Barcelona (INAB). He holds a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Barcelona and a PhD in Neurosciences from the University of Alicante. He combines a solid academic background with a passion for bridging science and everyday life. David’s work focuses on research in cognitive neuroscience, particularly exploring human thought, emotions, and consciousness. He has published the best seller El libro que tu cerebro no quiere leer, which remained on Spain’s top 10 non-fiction books list for weeks. His contributions to research and dissemination have earned him several prestigious awards, such as the National Telecommunications Award and the Extraordinary Award in Biomedical Engineering. David has shared his insights at conferences across Europe, North America, and South America, making complex scientific ideas accessible to diverse audiences. As the director of INAB, he continues to advance innovative approaches in neuroscience research and education.

Biography

Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time in inert systems, to the neurobiology of action-perception in living organisms such as flies, worms, mice, and humans. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combiningexperimental, computational and theoretical neuro-physics, his current researchdeals with human minds in the real world, concentrating on what he calls “the edges of consciousness”. As director of the Pari Center, Alex seeks to enact a kind of intellectual activism that brings a third leg to the “science stool”: apart from solid replicable data and deep imaginative theories, he sees the need to nurture the socio- political milieu that makes science possible (or impossible), bringing together leading thinkers and laypeople in a context that relaxes the self-suffocating constraints of current academe, unapologetically integrating the sciences, the arts, and the sacred. Alex has recently received some notable mentions, including being on the list of OOOM Magazine’s 100 World’s Most Inspiring People. His research proposal “Seeing without Eyes” won the first Linda G O’Bryant Noetic Research Prize.

Biography

Earl Keith Miller is a cognitive neuroscientist whose research focuses on neural mechanisms of cognitive, or executive, control. Earl K. Miller is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience with the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the Chief Scientist and co-founder of SplitSage. Earl Miller received a Bachelor of Arts degree (summa cum laude, with honors) in psychology from Kent State University in 1985, Master of Arts degree in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University in 1987, and a PhD in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton University in 1990. In 2020, Earl Miller was awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Science, honoris causa) from Kent State U.

Biography

Donald Hoffman received his PhD from MIT, and joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 1983, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences. He is an author of over 100 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence, and his new book, The Case Against Reality. He received a Distinguished Scientific Award of the American Psychological Association for early career research, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences. His writing has appeared in Edge, New Scientist, LA Review of Books, and Scientific American and his work has been featured in Wired, Quanta, The Atlantic, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. He has a TED Talk titled “Do we see reality as it is?” and a podcastwith Lex Fridman titled “Reality is an illusion.”

Biography

Avshalom Elitzur is a Professor in the Centre for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in the United States and is deemed by many to be an intellectual powerhouse in both the fields of physics and philosophy. Having left school at sixteen to work as a lab technician at the Weizmann Institute he presented a paper on quantum mechanics at Temple University, after which he was invited to Tel Aviv University to complete his doctorate on the subject. Elitzur is best known for his work on the Elitzur–Vaidman bomb-testing problem in quantum mechanics.

Biography

Farhan Lakhany is a philosopher of mind, artificial intelligence and cognitive science. In 2023, he received a PhD from the University of Iowa and is currently teaching at the University of Nebraska Omaha as a Visiting Assistant Professor. His main research interests lay at the intersection of the philosophy of mind, philosophy of artificial intelligence, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science with an emphasis on consciousness, mental representation and artificial intelligence. In addition, he has interests in the philosophy of science, metaphilosophy, epistemology, egalitarianism, neuroscience, psychology, evolutionary theory, biology and computer science.

Biography

Anirban earned his Ph.D. in Supramolecular Electronics at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata, 2005. From 2005 to 2008 he was ICYS research fellow at the ICYS, NIMS, Japan, and worked on the brain-like bio-processor building. In 2008, Anirban joined as a permanent scientist at NIMS, working on the cavity resonator model of human brain and design-synthesis of brain-like organic jelly. From 2013 to 2014 he was a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. Awards include: Hitachi Science and Technology award 2010, Inamori Foundation award 2011–2012, Kurata Foundation Award, Inamori Foundation Fellow (2011–) and Sewa Society international member, Japan.

Biography

Larkum is a full professor in the Biology Institute of the Humboldt University of Berlin and in the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience. This involves teaching many courses on neuroscience topics including (introductory neuroscience, cerebral cortex, methods in neuroscience research, etc.). He has a large laboratory (currently 28 people) including 5 PhD students and many Masters and Bachelor students. Several post-doctoral fellows have gone on to lead outstanding laboratories at top institutions around the world (e.g. RIKEN, Tokyo; Florey Institute, Melbourne; CNRS, Bordeaux; Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris; University of Surrey). Over the past 20 years he has supervised over 30 PhD students, and even more Masters and Bachelor students. As speaker for a Collaborative Research Center on memory consolidation (SFB1315), he is a co-coordinator of the PhD program within the center and is an active part of the International PhD Program of the Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin. He also participates regularly in student schools including as a regular speaker for the Australasian Course in Advanced Neuroscience (ACAN) and the Cold Spring Harbor Imaging course.

Biography

Dr. Giulio Ruffini, with a background in physics, founded Starlab in 2000, later founding Neuroelectrics in 2011. His pioneering work includes brain stimulation technology and brain-to-brain communication research.

Biography

Dr. Jay Sanguinetti, CEO, President, and Co-founder of Sanmai Technologies, PBC, stands at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and industry. He is a distinguished speaker, scientist, entrepreneur, and long-term mindfulness practitioner. Working alongside pioneers in the field, his contributions to human-focused ultrasound neuromodulation have significantly advanced the field. Dr. Sanguinetti collaborated with tech giants like Google, neurotechnology startups, many research labs and institutes worldwide, and groups like the BrainMind Institute. Specializing in psychophysiological measures such as EEG, fMRI, and eye-tracking, Dr. Sanguinetti has investigated many domains, including the complex neural dynamics of visual perception, emotion, and mindfulness meditation. He has also explored the neural basis of depression, anxiety, and Parkinson’s Disease. His work is at the cutting edge of neuroscience, exploring innovative forms of brain stimulation, including ultrasound and light-based techniques to boost memory, perception, and overall well-being. Dr. Sanguinetti teamed up with the prominent meditation teacher and scholar Shinzen Young to explore science-informed protocols and neurotechnologies to understand and assist mindfulness practice. This collaboration gave birth to the Science Enhanced Mindful Awareness (SEMA) lab at the University of Arizona. The SEMA lab is at the forefront of developing science-based mindfulness protocols that lower the barriers to meditation and may help more people experience the benefits of the practice. He has also contributed to consciousness studies and serves as the Assistant Director for the Center for Consciousness Studies.

Biography

Mike Wiest graduated from high school in Kenya, East Africa, then returned to the United States to earn a BA in physics at Dartmouth College in 1991, and a PhD in high-energy theoretical physics at Michigan State University in 1998. Excited by the Orch OR quantum theory of consciousness, he spent the next 10 years learning neuroscience as a postdoc in computational neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine and behavioral neurophysiology at Duke University. He is now an Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where he has been teaching and conducting chronic multi-electrode recording experiments in awake behaving rodents since 2008.

Biography

Stuart Hameroff MD is Professor at the Arizona Astrobiology Center, Anesthesiology & Psychology, and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. Retired from Anesthesiology where he researched how general anesthetic gases act on quantum vibrations in microtubules to prevent consciousness. Hameroff is known for his collaboration with British physicist and Nobel Laureate Sir Roger Penrose on the ‘Orch OR’ quantum theory of consciousness, and also for managing ‘The Science of Consciousness’ conferences for the past 30 years. Hameroff is also collaborating with Planetary Scientist Professor Dante Lauretta at Arizona AstroBiology Center (AABC) to study putative ‘signs of life’ and ‘roots of consciousness’ in extraterrestrial organic molecules from the early solar system retrieved by Dante’s NASA OSIRIS REx mission to asteroid Bennu. We will probe these molecules to answer the question: Which came first, life or consciousness?

Biography

I study electrophysiological correlates of spontaneous behaviour and disease states in freely moving rodents and primates. In particular, I am looking for common mechanisms behind the unexplained narrowband oscillations that appear in the local field potentials during levodopa-induced dyskinesia or psychedlic drug use. I am also engaged as the AI/ML coordinator of MultiPark and the technical manager of MoRe Lab. I have a background in both theoretical physics (MSc in Physics at Stockholm university, Sweden) and cognitive neuroscience (PhD at the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland). The topic of my PhD thesis was neural correlates of embodied consciousness (multisensory integration, space perception, self-identification, agency). I have specialized in data analysis of neurophysiological signals, including extracellular spikes, local field potentials and human ECoG, and quantification of animal behavior using video tracking and accelerometers. I have developed several softwaretools for the interactive analysis of these large data sets.

Biography

Thomas G. Brophy, PhD, is President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). He previously served as president of California Institute for Human Science (CIHS). His tenure as president of CIHS oversaw a many-year effort to achieve regional accreditation in 2021, for CIHS as a unique mind, body, spirit centered university. Earning a BA in physics from Colorado College, and MS and PhD degrees in physics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Thomas’ academic and scientific backgrounds include work on NASA’s Voyager and Cassini spacecraft projects, the CU Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and an appointment as a National Science Foundation Exchange Scientist at the University of Tokyo Department of Earth and Planetary Physics and ISAS robotic space program. Thomas explored the consciousness related aspects of UAP phenomena in his 1998 book The Mechanism Demands a Mysticism: An Exploration of Spirit, Matter, and Physics. His study of the archaeoastronomy of prehistoric Egypt, published in his books The Origin Map, and Black Genesis co-authored with Robert Bauval, has been cited as relevant to the study of extraterrestrial, or transhuman, intelligence.

Biography

Santosh Helekar is a neuroscientist at the Houston Methodist Research Institute (HMRI) in Houston, Texas, USA. He has a medical degree (M.B.B.S.) from the University of Bombay, India and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. Presently, he is the Scientific Director of Translational Biomagnetics and Neurometry Program at HMRI and a Professor of Neuroscience Research in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York. His most recent scientific and technological contributions include the invention of three noninvasive devices with wide-ranging neuroscience applications. The first device called Transcranial Rotating Permanent Magnet Stimulator (TRPMS) is a neuromodulation cap that has shown promise in a pilot phase I/IIa clinical trial for the treatment of chronic ischemic stroke and is being tested now for the treatment of drug-resistant depression. The second device called the Oncomagnetic helmet is being used under FDA’s expanded access program to treat end-stage recurrent glioblastoma patients and will shortly be investigated for safety and efficacy alongside standard of care treatment for the treatment of newly diagnosed glioblastoma in a pilot clinical trial. The third device called the Sentiometer was able to detect a previously unrecognized peri-somatic biophysical effect that is attenuated by general anesthesia and by unconsciousness due to brain damage or dysfunction. It is being tested in an ongoing pilot clinical study for safety and efficacy for continuously monitoring the level of consciousness of unresponsive unconscious or delirious patients in the intensive care unit. The Sentiometer appears to be sensitive to an electromagnetically modulated physicochemical process, possibly involving the interactions of delocalized electrons in aromatic organic polymers with water molecules. Consequently, it could provide a window into the fundamental subcellular mechanism that generates consciousness.

Biography

William Brown is a biophysicist, investigating the physics operational in the cellular and molecular regimes of biology that endows the living system with its remarkable characteristics. This investigation is primarily focused on energy resonance coupling across scale and range as well as information and memory processing in living systems. William is a teacher, science writer, and regularly gives live lectures and Q&A forums to teach the syncretic theories of a unified science. He is a part of the research team at The International Space Federation where in addition to theoretical investigations of the biophysics of life, they are developing health optimization and life extension technologies.

Biography

Dr. Philip Kurian is a theoretical physicist, (re)search(ing) scientist, and essayist, serving as principal investigator and founding director of the Quantum Biology Laboratory (https://quantumbiolab.com) at Howard University. Beginning his career as a math teacher in North Philadelphia, he completed his doctorate in physics at Howard after a stint at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Kurian is now the recipient of fellowships, grants, and awards from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, U.S.-Italy Fulbright Commission, Whole Genome Science Foundation, National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. His laboratory studies how collective and cooperative quantum behaviors can explain biological phenomena at the mesoscopic, organismal, and clinical scales, including in neurodegeneration, cancer, and human consciousness. The group’s work has been featured in Science, The Quantum Insider, SPIE Photonics Focus, Optica, Laser Focus World, BioPhotonics, Howard Magazine, TEDx, and by prominent science channels including Science News with Sabine and PBS Space Time.

Biography

Dante Lauretta is principal investigator of the OSIRIS-REx mission and a regents professor of Planetary Science at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. His research interests focus on the chemistry and mineralogy of asteroids and comets, and he is an expert in the analysis of extraterrestrial materials, including asteroid samples, meteorites and comet particles. Dr. Lauretta fosters the advancement of the next generation of scientists, engineers, and other space leaders through mentorship and taught coursework which apply his expertise in Planetary Science and spacecraft mission design & implementation. Dr. Lauretta heads the OSIRIS-REx research team at UArizona working on this mission, which has included more than 100 undergraduate and graduate students.

Biography

Dr. Anita Goel, MD Ph.D is a world-renowned expert and pioneer in the emerging field of Nanobiophysics - a new science at the convergence of physics, nanotechnology, and biomedicine. Whereas modern physics in the 20th century was developed primarily in the context of closed systems, Dr. Goel seeks to expand conventional theoretical and experimental physics frameworks and their mathematical machinery to describe non-equilibrium, open systems such as life and living systems that are strongly coupled with their environment. She has developed a new theoretical physics framework that elucidates the interplay of matter, energy, and information at a very fundamental physics level. Dr. Goel harnesses these insights to examine one of the most basic processes of living matter, the way nanomotors read and write information into DNA, how this process is influenced by the environment, and how quantum mechanics might play a “nontrivial” role in their dynamics. Dr. Goel was named by MIT’s Technology Review Magazine as one of the World’s “Top 35 science and technology innovators.”

Biography

Jimo Borjigin is an Associate Professor of Physiology and Neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School. She received her BS in Physics, MS in Biophysics from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, and PhD in Neuroscience from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. After conducting her postdoctoral training at the Hopkins, she was invited to become a Staff Associate at the Carnegie Institution of Washington Embryology Department. In 2003, she moved to the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor, focused her research initially on the use of melatonin as an in vivo tool to understand circadian rhythms; and since 2013, on the neural correlates of covert consciousness in the dying brain.

Biography

Brannon Wheeler teaches history of religion, Middle East, and Bible at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. He has authored and edited a number of books including Mecca and Eden: Ritual, Relics, and territory in Islam (Chicago, 2016) and Animal Sacrifice and the Origins of Islam (Cambridge, 2022). Professor Wheeler received his PhD from the University of Chicago, has taught at a number of universities around the world, and held visiting positions throughout the Middle East and Europe. His current research focuses on objects that are supposed to be touched.

Biography

Ross Coulthart is an Australian investigative journalist and author who has also worked in public relations. He is an advocate for the idea that governments are covering up knowledge of UFOs and alien visitations.

Biography

Dr. J. Kim Penberthy is the Chester F. Carlson Professor of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences in the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. She studies altered states of consciousness and the impact on mental health and wellbeing. She will discuss research exploring the impact of psilocybin-induced altered states including psychological flexibility, mystical experiences, self-transcendence, enhanced connectedness, and awe, on new pathways for healing prolonged grief.

Biography

Marjorie Woollacott, Ph.D., is an Emeritus Professor of Human Physiology, and member of the Institute of Neuroscience, at the University of Oregon. She was chair of the Human Physiology Department for seven years. In addition to teaching courses on neuroscience and rehabilitation, she taught courses on complementary and alternative medicine and meditation. She is Research Director for the International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS) and is President of the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences (AAPS). Woollacott graduated magna cum laude from the University of Southern California and was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California and her M.A. from the University of Oregon in Asian Studies. She was also a research professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Umea in Umea, Sweden, and in the National Center for Scientific Research in Marseille, France. Woollacott has received over 7.2 million dollars in research funding for her research in child development, aging, rehabilitation medicine and most recently, meditation. Her areas of expertise include: 1) changes in attentional performance skills and underlying neural networks associated with the mental training of meditation and tai chi; 2) the phenomenon of spiritually transformative experiences, including near-death experiences, 3) the development of balance and attentional abilities in children and factors leading to loss of balance function in aging, and in patients with movement disorders, 4) the design of assessment and treatment strategies to improve balance and attentional abilities. These include testing the efficacy of alternative forms of therapy such as tai chi and meditation for improving both attention and balance and gait abilities in patient populations; and 5) the development of musical performance skills in musicians. Woollacott has published more than 200 scientific articles and written or co-edited eight books. She is the co-author, with Dr. Anne Shumway-Cook of the textbook for health care professionals, titled: Motor Control: Translating Research into Clinical Practice, in its 6th edition (2021). Her latest book, Infinite Awareness (2015) (winner of eight awards, including the 2017 Parapsychological Association Book Award, Eric Hoffer Book Award and the Nautilus Book Award) pairs Woollacott's research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the mind's spiritual power. Between the scientific and spiritual worlds, she breaks open the definition of human consciousness to investigate the existence of a non-physical and infinitely powerful mind.

Biography

Dr Tsuchiya was awarded a PhD at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2006. Upon postdoctoral training at Caltech until 2010, he received a PRESTO grant from Japan Science and Technology (JST) agency and returned to Japan in 2010. In Jan 2012, he joined the School of Psychological Sciences at Monash University as an Associate Professor (Professor from 2020). From 2013 to 2017, he was an ARC Future Fellow. His main research interest is to uncover the neuronal basis of consciousness. Recently, he focuses on the novel Qualia Structure approach on consciousness, which advocates to characterize the structure of qualia by measuring the similarity between qualia on a large scale, and to reveal their neural correlates and their causal information structure. The Qualia Structure project will further employ various research methods, including phenomenology, development, and constructivism, in order to estimate structures of qualia from perceptual to emotional domains. The outcome of this field is the creation of a new interdisciplinary research program that will have impacts to the general society, such as understanding the consciousness of others and the consciousness of animals and artificial intelligence.

Biography

Suzanne Gildert is Founder and CEO of Nirvanic, a company pioneering quantum consciousness technologies for artificial intelligence. Suzanne previously co-founded and was CTO of Sanctuary AI, a company building Human-Like Intelligence in General Purpose Robots. At Sanctuary she helped design, build and launch the Phoenix humanoid robot and its novel Carbon AI control software, with a focus on work applications to address labor shortages. Prior to Sanctuary, Suzanne was co-founder and CTO of Kindred AI. She oversaw the design and engineering of the company's human-like robots and was responsible for the development of cognitive architectures that allow these robots to learn about themselves and their environments. Suzanne also has deep expertise in quantum computing from her time at D-Wave Systems, where she ported AI algorithms to D-Wave's quantum annealing hardware. She also invented and implemented MAXCAT, the world's first game ever played against a quantum computer, worked on the world's first supervised classifier run on a quantum computer and was the first person to control the motion of a robot using a quantum computer. Suzanne received her Ph.D. in experimental physics from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 2008, specializing in quantum device physics, microfabrication techniques, and low-temperature measurements of novel superconducting circuits. She likes science outreach, programming, retro tech, fantasy and gothic art, coffee, electronic music and lifelogging. She is a published author of a book of art and poetry. She is passionate about conscious robots and their role as a new form of symbiotic, friendly life in our society.

Biography

Prof Laxmidhar Behera joined as the Director of IIT Mandi on 19th January, 2022. Prior to this, he was working as the Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur, and simultaneously served as TCS affiliate faculty.