Arne Ekstrom is a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, where he studies spatial navigation and memory. We talk about how he got into psychology, his unusual path to getting a PhD, his work on using single-cells recordings from people, the relationship between memory and spatial navigation, why he uses multiple methods, and much mor…

Benjamin Ehrlich is the author of the recent biography of Santiago Ramon y Cajal (The brain in search of itself), and The Dreams of Santiago Ramon y Cajal. We talk about Cajal's life and work, Cajal's unlikely beginnings in a rural Spain, how he discovered that neurons were separate from each other, leading to the neutron doctrine, how Cajal became…

Emily Finn is an assistant professor at Dartmouth College. We talk about her research on neural fingerprinting, naturalistic stimuli, how Emily got into science, the year she spent in Peru before her PhD, advice for writing well, and much more. There are occasional (minor) audio disturbances when Emily's speaking. Sorry about that, still trying to …

David Van Essen is an Alumni Endowed Professor of Neuroscience at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In this conversation, we talk about David's path to becoming a neuroscientist, the Human Connectome project, hierarhical processing in the cerebral cortex, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, …

Nachum Ulanovsky is a professor at the Weizman Institute. We talk about his research on spatial navigation in bats, how Nachum started working with bats, the importance of natural behaviour, how to build a 700m long tunnel for neuroscience, and much more. Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon Timestamps 0:00:00: How Nachum started working …

Tom Hardwicke is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. We talk about meta-science, incuding Tom's work on post-publication critique and registered reports, what his new role as editor at Psychological Science entails, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjami…

Jessica Polka is Executive Director of ASAPbio, a non-profit that promotes innovation and transparency in life science publishing. We talk about her work at ASAPbio, how she got into it, preprints, the many functions of peer review, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benj…

Brian Boyd is a Distinguished Professor in English and Drama at the University of Auckland. We talk mainly about Vladimir Nabokov: Brian wrote the defining biography on Nabokov (in addition to books on more specific aspects about Nabokov), so we discuss Nabokov's life & work, Brian's approachh to writing biographies, with some hints of the new biog…

Camillo Padoa-Schioppa is a Professor of Neuroscience at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In this conversation, we talk about Camillo's work on economic values in the brain, whether it is causally involved in choice, Camillo's career, working with different species, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscien…

Juliana Schroder is a professor at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. In this conversation, we talk about her research in which she asks people to talk to strangers, and how this experience is usually a lot more pleasant than people expect. We talk about how the research came to be, what they found, how culture and norms affect the results, h…

Rick Betzel is an Associate professor at India University Bloomington. We talk about his research on network neuroscience, how to find good collaborators, Rick's path to network neuroscience, and much more. Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon Timestamps 0:00:00: What's the purpose of connectomics if understanding a species' entire connec…

Elisabeth Bik is a science integrity consultant. In this conversation, we talk about her work on reporting scientific errors and misconduct, how one becomes a full-time scientific integrity consultant, her postdoc work on the microbiome of dolphins, reactions to her work (both positive and negative), how to deal with online abuse, the arms race bet…

Peter Bandettini is director of the fMRI core facility at the National Institute of Mental Health. In this episode, we talk about the history, present, and future of fMRI, alongside Peter's career. Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon Timestamps 0:00:00: How Peter got started working on fMRI in the early 1990s 0:05:48: What was possible i…

Brian Nosek is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, and Co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Open Science. In this conversation, we discuss the Center for Open Science, Brian's early interest in improving science, how COS got started, what Brian would like to do in the future, and how to figure out whether ideas a…

Rachel Bedder is a postdoc with Yael Niv at Princeton. In this conversation, we talk about her research on rumination and repetitive negative thinking (in the context of a partially observable Markov decision process), her work as a curator, why she enjoys teaching without grades, how to manage yourself as a PhD student, and much more. BJKS Podcast…

Geoff Cumming is an Emeritus Professor at La Trobe University. In this conversation, we discuss his work on New Statistics: estimation instead of hypothesis testing, meta-analytic thinking, and many related topics. Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon Timestamps 0:00:00: A brief history of statistics, p-values, and confidence intervals 0:…

Brooke Macnamara is an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University. In this conversation, we talk about her research on growth mindset and deliberate practice, whether deliberate practice is falsifiable, the benefits of diverse experiences, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely rela…

Simine Vazire is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne. In this conversation, we talk about her work on meta-science, the purpose of journals and peer review, Simine's plans for being Editor-in-Chief at Psychological Science, the hidden curriculum of scienitic publishing, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscienc…

Nanthia Suthana is an Associate Professor at UCLA. In this conversation, we talk about her research using invasive brain recordings from humans, how the technologies have changed and what might happen in the future. We also talk about how she runs her lab, how to learn as a PI, and what Nanthia enjoys about mentoring students and postdocs. We had s…

Gillian Coughlan is a postdoc whose work focuses on the role of spatial navigation in dementia. In this conversation, we talk about how Gillian went from Ireland to doing a PhD in the UK, different ways for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease, what beta-amyloid and tau are, what spatial navigation has to do with dementia, and whether early menopause can…

Lynn Nadel is an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona, where his research focuses on the role of the hippocampus in memory. This is our second conversation. We discuss how the Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map was received, Lynn's career, including his years as head of department at the University of Arizona, how to foster collaboration, wh…

Adam Mastroianni is a scientist who writes the Substack 'Experimental History'. This is our second conversation. We discuss science as a strong-link problem, why everyone is allowed to do science, and some of Adam's suggestions for how science can be done differently. Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon Timestamps 0:00:00: Adam's Substac…

Paul Smaldino is an Associate Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences at UC Merced, where he studies the evolution of behavior in response to social, cultural, and ecological pressures. In this conversation, we talk about his new book Modeling Social Behavior, everything related to formal models of social behaviour, and Paul's path to where…

Moin Syed is a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, where he studies identity and personality development. Our conversation focuses on his work in meta-science, especially the role of journals and editors in the scientific process. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by B…

Tom Hostler is a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. In this conversation, we focus on his recent article on the increased workload caused by open science. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith. Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon Ti…

Nico Schuck is Professor and head of the research group 'Mechanisms of learning and change' at the University of Hamburg, where his research focuses on the neuroscience of learning, memory, and cognitive maps. In this conversation, we discuss his work on cognitive maps and replay in Orbitofrontal Cortex and Hippocampus, decoding even brief events w…

Lynn Nadel is an emeritus professor at the University of Arizona, where his research focuses on the role of the hippocampus in memory. In this conversation, we talk about the early years of Lynn's career: why he chose to do chemistry, how a course with Donald Hebb made him switch to psychology, how his postdoc was disrupted by the Soviet invasion d…

Mona Garvert is Lead Research Scientist at Alena where she uses her background in cognitive neuroscence to advance computational psychiatry. In this episode, we talk about her academic research on the neural basis of cognitive maps, how she got into this topic, fMRI adaptation , and her recent move from academia to working at Alena. BJKS Podcast is…

Peter Gärdenfors is an Emeritus Professor at Lund University at the Department of Philosophy. His work is at the intersection of philosophy, cognitive, psychology, and linguistics. In this conversation, we discuss his book Conceptual spaces and many of the topics discussed therein (convexity, prototypes, metrics), whether the theory is falsifiable,…

Isabel Thielmann is a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for the study of crime, security and law. In this conversation, we talk about her background as a competitive sprinter, her research on prosocial behaviour and personality, the role of affordances, how game theory and interdependence theory can helpus understand human social be…

Daniela Schiller is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where she studies the neural mechanisms of emotional control and flexibility. In this conversation, we talk about her work on cognitive maps for social behaviour, the importance of power and affiliation for our social lives, the difficulties of mea…

Rafael Pérez y Pérez is a professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Cuajimalpa, where he studies computational creativity, in particular in relation to computer programs that can write stories. In this conversation, we talk about MEXICA, the story generator he has been working on for most of his career, his newly released book Story Mach…

Adam Mastroianni is a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia Business School. In this conversation, we talk about his work on conversations, his Substack/blog, his article Things Could Be Better and why he chose to publish it this way, improv comedy, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely re…

Gareth Barnes is a professor at University College London, where he is Head of Magnetoencephalography. We talk about how Gareth randomly stumbled into working on MEG, what MEG is, and some of his recent projects, including the exciting new generation of MEG scanners: OPM-MEG. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything va…

Adeyemi Adetula is a PhD student at the University of Grenoble, where he is leading the ManyLabs Africa project. In this conversation, we talk about that project, his recent commentary 'Psychology should generalize from - not just to - Africa', how Western researchers can best collaborate with African researchers, and much more. Timestamps 0:00:05:…

Nils Köbis is a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, where he studies the intersection of AI and corruption. In this conversation, we talk about how Nils got into working on this topic, and some of his recent papers on AI, corruption, deepfakes, and AI poetry. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology…

Eva Krockow is a lecturer in psychology at the University of Leicester, where her research focusses on the psychology of antimicrobial resistance. We talk about her educational background, her work on the Centipede Game, social dilemmas, antimicrobial resistance, and the value of qualitative studies. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, ps…

Ricky Patel is a postdoc at Lund University, where he studies the neural basis of navigation behaviours in arthropods. In this conversation, we talk about his work on spatial navigation in Mantis Shrimp and bumblebees, the difficulty of recording from moving insects, science communication, and scientific illustrations. BJKS Podcast is a podcast abo…

Chris Frith is an Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at University College London. His research has spanned several topics, including social cognition, schizophrenia, volition, and consciousness. We talk about Two Heads (a book co-written with his wife and son), his career, and the history of the FIL. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience…

Cameron Brick is an Assistant Professor in Social Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on the psychological aspects of climate change. In this conversation, we talk about climate change, the psychological aspects behind it, the difficulty of defining pro-environmental behaviour, and his recent article on Illusory Essences…

Peter Vuust is a Professor at the Center for Music in the Brain in Aarhus, a jazz musician, and composer. In this conversation , we talk about his recent review in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, how he got to where he is, active inference in music, jazz improvisation, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anythi…

Mary Elizabeth Sutherland is senior editor at Nature, where she edits submissions in the behavioural sciences and cognitive neuroscience. In this conversation, we talk about how she became an editor, what editors do all day, how to improve your submissions, the future of publishing at Nature, the harp, and much more. BJKS Podcast is a podcast about…

Angelika Stefan is a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam in the Psychological Methods group (lead by Eric-Jan Wagenmakers). In this conversation, we talk about her preprint 'Big little lies: A Compendium and Simulation of p-Hacking Strategies', which she just uploaded to PsyArXiv. We also discuss how she created the Shiny App that allows use…

Jessica Flake is Assistant Professor for quantitative psychology and modeling at McGill University, where she studies measurement. In this conversation, we talk about her recent paper 'Measurement Schmeasurement: Questionable measurement practices and how to avoid them' (with former guest of the podcast Eiko Fried), how she makes stats lectures int…

Chris Chambers is professor at Cardiff University where he is Head of Brain Stimulation. He is also one of the pioneers behind Registered Reports, a type of article where researchers receive peer review and in-principle acceptance before the results are known. In this conversation, we focus on Registered Reports and talk about how Chris got Registe…

In this conversation, I talk with Toby Wise about applying for postdoc fellowships. Toby has received and completed the Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship, where he worked with Ray Dolan and Dean Mobbs. He answers some of the questions I have about applying for postdoc fellowships in general, such as how to write a proposal, how to contact …

Hugo Spiers is professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London. His research explores how our brain constructs representations of the world and uses them to recall the past, navigate the present and imagine the future. In this episode, we talk about his work on Sea Hero Quest (with Michael Hornberger, former guest of this podcast),…

This is the 50th episode of this podcast and we're doing something a little different: Cody Kommers, PhD student, fellow podcaster, and one of the first guests of my podcast, interviewed me about the first year of my podcast: what did I learn, what went differently than expected, and what do I plan on changing in the future? We also discuss podcast…

This is the fourth and final episode of a book club series on Peter Gärdenfors's book Conceptual Spaces. In this episode, we will discuss chapters 7 and 8, in which Gärdenfors discusses computational aspects his theory of conceptual spaces, and provides a general discussion of the topics covered in the book. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frol…

This is the third episode of a book club series on Peter Gärdenfors's book Conceptual Spaces. In this episode, we will discuss chapters 5 and 6, in which Gärdenfors explains how semantics and induction fit into his theory of conceptual spaces. For this series, I'm joined by Koen Frolichcs, who was already my cohost for the books club series on Lee …