Research Focus
I hold degrees in electrical engineering and in computer science and am interested in all aspects of mind, brain, behavior, and the human condition. At Cornell, I have worked on behavioral, neural, evolutionary, and computational aspects of language, vision, and happiness. While my present scientific interests focus on evolution and consciousness, I am devoting an increasing proportion of my research efforts (and all my teaching work) to the most urgent challenge that we face collectively as a species: the unfolding climate catastrophe. My monographs include Computing the Mind, a textbook (2008); The Happiness of Pursuit, not a self-help book (2012); Beginnings, a psychological-philosophical science fiction, or psy-phi sci-fi, anabasis (2014); and, most recently, Life, Death, and Other Inconvenient Truths, an abecedary take on the human condition in 38 short chapters (2020). My latest book, The Consciousness Revolutions, was published by Springer Nature in 2023.
