Taylor Beck

Background

About Taylor Beck

Teacher, writer and public speaker with a background in neuroscience, journalism & mental health. Editor in Chief at Thinking About Thinking Inc, a non-profit on the future of intelligence, both natural and A.I. Thinking About thinking hosts conferences on Neuroscience, AI, and the future of the mind. We're a non-profit supported by Google DeepMind, Harvard University, The Templeton Foundation’s Diverse Intelligences Initiative, among others. Our annual conference on neuroscience, Neuromonster, meets globally, as does our quarterly summit on AI, Algorithmic Entrepreneurship. I’m a public speaker, essayist, & advocate, often on the topic of bipolar disorder and motivation. My research focuses on “psychiatry in a dish”: stem cell models of mental disorders; philosophers like Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and William James from history. I want to bridge gaps, from computational neuroscience to cell biology and neurodivergent conditions like ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. I’ve given talks at conferences on neuroscience, AI, cognitive science, and philosophy of science in Sicily, Crete, Rome; St. Andrew’s, Scotland; Exeter, England; Warsaw, Poland; Split, Croatia, among other places. My main interest is in writing, teaching & speaking to a popular audience. My focus is on drive: what makes a person feel driven, at times, by desire that later disappears? What is the link between mood, mind, and metabolism- in brains, but not yet machines? Skills: writing, the science of memory, sleep, and mental disorders, fMRI. Japanese & French, with weak but enthusiastic Latin. MA in Journalism from New York University, MS from MIT in science writing. Brain research experience at Princeton, Kyoto, and Washington University, St. Louis. Teaching experience at the Pierrepont School and in Okayama prefecture, Japan; guest lecture visits at Princeton, SUNY Buffalo, Collegiate School & summer teaching to high school students at Barnard University.