Board

Board

Dr. Bernard J. Baars – Co-founder | Editor in Chief

Affiliated Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, CA

Bernard Baars is a former Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, CA, and is currently an Affiliated Fellow there. He is best known as the originator of the global workspace theory, a theory of human cognitive architecture and consciousness widely cited in philosophical & scientific sources. He previously served as a professor of psychology at the State University of New York, Stony Brook where he conducted research into the causation of the Freudian slip, and as a faculty member at the Wright Institute. Bernard is interested in human language, and the psychology and brain basis of conscious experience.

He also seeks to understand the ethical implications of consciousness for human and animal welfare as well as the nature of consciousness in animals.

His other research interests include: consciousness in the history of psychology, the scientific problem of volition, psychodynamics, conscious aspects of emotion and bioethics.

Bernard is author of the books In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind, A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness, The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology, & w/Nicole M. Gage – an introductory text for cognitive neuroscience called Cognition, Brain and Consciousness: An Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience. Together with William P. Banks, Bernard has edited the journal Consciousness & Cognition for over 15 years & was founding President of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness and currently on their Editorial Board for the journal Psyche.

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Dr. Robert L. Blum

Diplomate: American Board of Emergency Medicine
Diplomate: American Board of Internal Medicine

Internal Medicine and of Emergency Medicine. He worked for two decades as an emergency physician for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, where he was Chief Resident in Internal Medicine.

Prior to that he was in a neuroscience MD, PhD training program at the University of California in San Francisco. He was also a post-doctoral fellow in Clinical Pharmacology at Stanford University. In addition, Dr. Blum obtained his PhD from Stanford in Computer Science and Biostatistics.

While at Stanford from 1976 to 1986 he developed an AI program (the RX Project) that automated the discovery of medical knowledge from large clinical databases. That project achieved worldwide recognition, and he received Japan’s Toyobo Foundation Award for worldwide bioinformatics research in 1985. At Stanford, Bob led a team of programmers, statisticians, and AI experts as Research Associate and (non-Academic Senate) Principal Investigator of the RX Project, which received numerous grants and awards from NIH, NLM, and NSF.

Since retiring from ER practice in 2007, Dr. Blum has returned to Stanford University where he is an Affiliate of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Computation in the Psychology Department, where he strives to integrate theoretical models from AI /machine vision/ machine learning with cognitive neuroscience.

Since his undergraduate days in mathematics fifty years ago at MIT, Dr. Blum has been intellectually
motivated by two questions: 1) how does the brain work and 2) can it be done in silicon?

He published widely on AI while working as a PI at Stanford and post-retirement covers Stanford neuroscience and AI on his website bobblum.com . He also lectures at and occasionally hosts neuroscience and AI events in Silicon Valley.

Bob is also an avid outdoorsman and lover of nature. In addition to living out of a backpack for weeks every summer in the Sierras, he also supports the foundation work of Mongabay and Nature and Culture International in preserving tropical rain forests. The consciousness of humanity must be shifted from its short-term focus to long-term existential issues, if we are to survive. (This emphasis also motivates Bob’s role as a Science Advisor to the Brain Preservation Foundation and the Lifeboat Foundation.)

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Heather Berlin, PhD

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Heather Berlin is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where she also completed an NIMH Postdoctoral Fellowship. She conducts research to discover the neurobiological underpinnings of compulsive and impulsive psychiatric and neurological disorders with the goal of prevention and enhanced treatment.

She is also interested in the neural basis of consciousness and dynamic unconscious processes.

Dr. Berlin conducts clinical research nationally and internationally and has published her work widely.

She has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships includinga Young Investigator Award from the American Neuropsychiatric Association, a Young Investigator Award from the National Education Alliance for Borderline PersonalityDisorder, and the Clifford Yorke Prize from the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society.

She is a Visiting Scholar at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Instituteand was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Vassar College, and a Visiting Lecturer at theSwiss Federal Institute of Technology/University of Zurich, and at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

She received her Bachelor of Science from SUNY Stony Brook, Master’s in Psychologyfrom the New School for Social Research, Master of Public Health from Harvard University, and her Doctorate from the University of Oxford.

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Development | Operations

Natalie Geld – Co-Founder

Author, Producer, Communications & Media Specialist

Natalie Geld is a writer, producer, communications specialist and educator, and has spent much of her life fostering educational opportunities to manifest effective communication skills and actualize vivid human potential. She co-founded & taught Effective Communication Seminars at The New Teachers Institute, which reached scores of educators nationally.

As a former news producer, her segments have appeared on worldwide networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MTV, FOX, E!, and BET.

She designs, establishes, and stimulates funding for educational, literacy and creative writing programs enlivening curriculum for students to develop their mind, critical thinking and writing skills and their potential to contribute to society. Programs active in 50+ LAUSD High Schools and institutions provide ongoing employment for published writers of all genres as well as enrichment and opportunity for under-served youth include Pen USA’s ‘PEN in the Classroom’ – where inner city students accepted poetry and creative writing awards on the same stage as Steven Zaillian and Gore Vidal – and the Bay area’s ‘Strong Point.’

Natalie developed education and literacy programs for the Freedom to Write Organization PEN Center West, working alongside Ray Bradbury, George Plimpton, David Ulin, Carolyn See, Roger Simon, Kit Rachlis and others.

She is an Executive Board Member of the teen literacy organization GetLit.org; was nominated as a HellRaiser by Mother Jones Magazine; and is a member of the ASSC and the American Humanist Association. She researches and writes about the integral nature of energy and the relationship of science, consciousness, sexuality and our health.

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Strategic Planning Advisory Group

Alfie Rustom – Consulting Manager at Misys Banking Systems

• Expert Consultant at Misys Banking Systems
• Consulting Manager, UK and NI at Misys Banking Systems

Alfie Rustom has worked for over 15 years as a technology consultant to the Treasury and Capital Markets, his clients are some of the worlds’ leading financial institutions including HSBC, Deutsche Bank, World Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Tokyo-Mitsubishi Bank.

Mr. Rustom gained a MSci with 1st Class Honors in Physics from the University of St. Andrews, where he was further awarded the prestigious Nichols Scholarship in Low Temperature Physics to pursue his PhD. After accepting, he soon realized that academia was not for him and opted to explore a global career in financial technology. He has worked for extended periods throughout Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.

He currently lives and works in New York as a Consulting Manager for Misys PLC, and fills his spare time writing screenplays and reading neuroscience papers.

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Rene Baston – Founder & Co-CEO at HVBio, Inc. / Founder, President at Baston & Associates, Inc.