Paul Broks is an English neuropsychologist and science writer.
Broks trained as a clinical psychologist at Oxford University and went on to specialize in neuropsychology. He followed an career combining both clinical practice with the National Health Service (NHS), and basic research, with academic posts at the universities of Sheffield, Birmingham and Plymouth. He turned to freelance writing after entering a popular science writing competition organised by New Scientist magazine, which resulted in a book deal. [1] The resulting book, Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology (2003), published by Atlantic Monthly Press, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2003. [2]
His other work includes documentary collaborations with Hugh Hudson ( Rupture: Living With My Broken Brain , 2012), for which he wrote the script for the voice-over, [3] and Ian Knox ( Martino Unstrung , 2008). [4] He is a regular contributor to Prospect and has written for The Times , Sunday Times , Daily Telegraph , The Guardian , and Granta . [2] His radio broadcasts include the History of Ideas 2015 BBC Radio 4.
He is currently based in Bath. [5]
Bjørn Lomborg is a Danish author and the president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is the former director of the Danish government's Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI) in Copenhagen. He became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001).
Alfred Rupert Sheldrake is an English author and parapsychology researcher. He proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been criticized as pseudoscience. He has worked as a biochemist at Cambridge University, Harvard scholar, researcher at the Royal Society, and plant physiologist for ICRISAT in India.
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a 320-acre (130-hectare) campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution for 2021–22 was £295.5 million, of which £30.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £370 million, and had an undergraduate offer rate of 85.1% in 2021.
Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of the brain affect cognitive and behavioral functions.
Neuropsychological tests are specifically designed tasks that are used to measure a psychological function known to be linked to a particular brain structure or pathway. Tests are used for research into brain function and in a clinical setting for the diagnosis of deficits. They usually involve the systematic administration of clearly defined procedures in a formal environment. Neuropsychological tests are typically administered to a single person working with an examiner in a quiet office environment, free from distractions. As such, it can be argued that neuropsychological tests at times offer an estimate of a person's peak level of cognitive performance. Neuropsychological tests are a core component of the process of conducting neuropsychological assessment, along with personal, interpersonal and contextual factors.
Clinical neuropsychology is a sub-field of psychology concerned with the applied science of brain-behaviour relationships. Clinical neuropsychologists use this knowledge in the assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and or rehabilitation of patients across the lifespan with neurological, medical, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions, as well as other cognitive and learning disorders. The branch of neuropsychology associated with children and young people is pediatric neuropsychology.
Richard Thomas Mabey is a writer and broadcaster, chiefly on the relations between nature and culture.
Neuropsychological assessment was traditionally carried out to assess the extent of impairment to a particular skill and to attempt to determine the area of the brain which may have been damaged following brain injury or neurological illness. With the advent of neuroimaging techniques, location of space-occupying lesions can now be more accurately determined through this method, so the focus has now moved on to the assessment of cognition and behaviour, including examining the effects of any brain injury or neuropathological process that a person may have experienced.
Ben Michael Goldacre is a British physician, academic and science writer. He is the first Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford. He is a founder of the AllTrials campaign and OpenTrials to require open science practices in clinical trials.
John Cornwell FRSL is a British journalist, author, and academic. Since 1990 he has directed the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he was also, until 2017, Founder and Director of the Rustat Conferences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 2011. He was nominated for the PEN/Ackerley Prize for best UK memoir 2007 and shortlisted Specialist Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards 2006. He won the Scientific and Medical Network Book of the Year Award for Hitler's Scientists, 2005; and received the Independent Television Authority-Tablet Award for contributions to religious journalism (1994). In 1982 he won the Gold Dagger Award Non-Fiction (1982) for Earth to Earth. He is best known for his investigative journalism; memoir; and his work in public understanding of science. In addition to his books on the relationship between science, ethics and the humanities, he has written widely on the Catholic Church and the modern papacy, often with much controversy.
Edzard Ernst is a retired British-German academic physician and researcher specializing in the study of complementary and alternative medicine. He was Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter, allegedly the world's first such academic position in complementary and alternative medicine.
David Eagleman is an American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator. He teaches neuroscience at Stanford University and is CEO and co-founder of Neosensory, a company that develops devices for sensory substitution. He also directs the non-profit Center for Science and Law, which seeks to align the legal system with modern neuroscience and is Chief Science Officer and co-founder of BrainCheck, a digital cognitive health platform used in medical practices and health systems. He is known for his work on brain plasticity, time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw.
Cecil Randy Reynolds is an American psychology professor best known for his work in psychological testing and assessment.
Paul Bloom is a Canadian American psychologist. He is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University and Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on language, morality, religion, fiction, and art.
Richard E. Cytowic is an American neurologist and author who rekindled interest in synesthesia in the 1980s and returned it to mainstream science. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times Magazine cover story about James Brady, the Presidential Press Secretary shot in the brain during the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Cytowic’s writing ranges from textbooks and music reviews, to his Metro Weekly "Love Doctor" essays and brief medical biographies of Anton Chekhov, Maurice Ravel and Virginia Woolf. His work is the subject of two BBC Horizon documentaries, “Orange Sherbert Kisses” (1994) and “Derek Tastes of Earwax” (2014).
Franz Lidz is an American writer, journalist and pro basketball executive.
Siddhartha Mukherjee is an Indian-American physician, biologist, and author. He is best known for his 2010 book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, that won notable literary prizes including the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, and Guardian First Book Award, among others. The book was listed in the "All-Time 100 Nonfiction Books" by Time magazine in 2011. His 2016 book The Gene: An Intimate History made it to #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list, and was among The New York Times 100 best books of 2016, and a finalist for the Wellcome Trust Prize and the Royal Society Prize for Science Books.
Vaughan Bell is a British clinical psychologist, currently at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust specialising in psychological interventions for psychotic outpatients and in training other professionals to deal with such patients. He is a clinical senior lecturer in the Division of Psychiatry at the Faculty of Brain Sciences at University College London and a visiting researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. His research focus includes neuropsychology, social cognition, psychosis and brain damage.
Edmund Soon-Weng Yong is a British-American science journalist. He is a staff member at The Atlantic, which he joined in 2015. In 2021, he received a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for a series on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Milton Mermikides is a British composer, guitarist and academic of Greek heritage. His diverse output includes compositions, academic papers, talks and musical performances. He has worked with a number of artists including Tim Minchin, Pat Martino, John Williams, Tod Machover, Steve Winwood and Brian Eno and research bodies such as the Wellcome Trust, UCL Neuroscience, British Library, Science Museum, Aldeburgh Music and the Smithsonian Institution. Mermikides is widely recognised as a leading figure in data sonification. His 2004 work Bloodlines, written with his sister Dr Alex Mermikides, received critical acclaim. Bloodlines was created by translating his daily blood results, whilst suffering from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia, into each second of a musical composition.