All Episodes

#509 Christian Hoffmann: Social Media, Fake News, and Political Polarization

Aug 16, 2021

Dr. Christian Pieter Hoffmann is Professor of Communication Management and Political Communication at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Leipzig, Germany. In addition, he is responsible for teaching in the field of political communication in cooperation with the Institute for Political Science. Dr. Hoffmann is a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen, Singapore Management University, Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz and the University of Applied Sciences Zurich. His research interests include strategic communication management, financial communication and political communication – with a particular focus on the challenges and opportunities provided by new media. More»
#508 Scott Small - Forgetting: The Benefits of Not Remembering

Aug 13, 2021

Dr. Scott A. Small is the Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University, where he is the Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology. He is appointed in the Departments of Neurology, Radiology, and Psychiatry. With an expertise in Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive aging, Dr. Small’s research focuses on the hippocampus, a circuit in the brain targeted by these and other disorders, notably schizophrenia. He has pioneered the development and application of high-resolution functional MRI techniques that can pinpoint parts of the hippocampus most affected by aging and disease. His lab then uses this information to try to identify causes of these disorders. Over the years, his lab has used this ‘top-down’ approach to isolate pathogenic mechanisms related to Alzheimer’s disease, cognitive aging, and schizophrenia. More recently, his lab has used this insight for drug discovery and to develop novel therapeutic interventions, some of which are currently being tested in patients. He is the author of Forgetting: The Benefits of Not Remembering. More»
#507 Jessica Thompson: Human Evolution, and Our Impact on the Environment

Aug 12, 2021

Dr. Jessica Thompson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. Dr. Thompson specializes in human evolution, and especially those aspects that can be revealed through the analysis of ancient animal bones found at archaeological sites (zooarchaeology). She leads the Malawi Ancient Lifeways and Peoples Project in Malawi, central Africa, where she has maintained a field site since 2009. This multidisciplinary work combines archaeological science, evolutionary theory, and hunter-gatherer ethnography to develop and interpret the first cultural and paleoenvironmental chronologies in the region that span the transition from the last Ice Age. Her other research, based on collaborative work in Ethiopia, targets the opposite end of the archaeological record, at its origin in the Pliocene. Dr. Thompson is PI of the Osteoarchaeology Laboratory at Yale University. More»
#506 Crystal Lee: Data Visualizations, Online Misinformation, and the Covid-19 Pandemic

Aug 9, 2021

Crystal Lee is a PhD candidate at the History / Anthropology / Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS) program at MIT, a researcher at the Visualization Group in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Her research focuses on how people interpret and make data visualizations. She also thinks a lot about the relationship between technology and disability, and she loves talking about mixed methods research that combines humanistic questions with data science and critical cartography. In her work as a Digital Teaching Fellow at Harvard, she created a curriculum to integrate digital mapping and visualization into the history of science. Previously, she was a visiting research scientist at the European Commission, and she graduated with high honors from Stanford University. More»
#505 Michelle Montague: Mind, Phenomenology, Cognition, Perception, Consciousness, and Metaphysics

Aug 6, 2021

Dr. Michelle Montague is Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Austin. She is interested in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Dr. Montague is the editor of Non-Propositional Intentionality, Cognitive Phenomenology, and Philosophical Writings by P.F. Strawson (co-edited with Galen Strawson). She is the author of The Given: experience and its content. More»
#504 Ewa Dabrowska: Linguistics, and Native and Second Language Attainment

Aug 5, 2021

Dr. Ewa Dabrowska is Professor at Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen, and in the Department of English Language and Linguistics at Birmingham University. Her research interests include cognitive linguistics, language acquisition, the mental status of rules, and individual differences in linguistic knowledge. She has published monographs on the semantics of case and the relationship between linguistics and other disciplines studying language, and numerous articles. She is the editor of Cognitive Linguistics and Vice President of the UK Cognitive Linguistics Association. More»
#503 Luke Russell - Being Evil: A Philosophical Perspective

Aug 2, 2021

Dr. Luke Russell is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. His research explores moral philosophy and he has written about evil, forgiveness, virtue and vice. Dr. Russell teaches ethics, moral psychology, and critical thinking, as well as running the University's high school philosophy course, Mind and Morality. His new book is Being Evil: A Philosophical Perspective. More»
#502 Marco Neves: História do Português Desde o Big Bang

Jul 30, 2021

THIS INTERVIEW IS IN PORTUGUESE. More»
#501 Ethan Porter: The Consumer Citizen

Jul 29, 2021

Dr. Ethan Porter is an assistant professor at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. His research has appeared or is forthcoming in Political Communication, Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Politics, Groups and Identities and Journal of Experimental Political Science. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post and other popular publications. His research interests include public opinion, political communication, political psychology and experimental design. He is the author of False Alarm: The Truth About Political Mistruths in the Trump Era, and The Consumer Citizen, which investigates the ways in which everyday consumer decision-making affects political attitudes and behavior. More»
#500 Elly Vintiadis - Philosophy by Women: 22 Philosophers Reflect on Philosophy and Its Value

Jul 26, 2021

Dr. Elly Vintiadis is a philosopher of mind and psychiatry at Deree, the American College of Greece. Her work focuses on the mind, its products and disorders, and the nature of their dependence on the social environment. She is mainly interested in what mental disorders can tell us about the nature of the mind, and in emergence and explanation, but her research also extends to epistemology, metaphilosophy and animal ethics. She is the author of three books, including Philosophy by Women: 22 Philosophers reflect on Philosophy and Its Value. More»