Toward a Science of Consciousness

Apr 9-14, 2012

PLENARY

Leonard Mlodinow

Leonard Mlodinow holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley, has been an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Physik und Astrophysik in Munich, and on the physics faculty of California Institute of Technology.  He has authored numerous publications in academic physics journals as well as in the popular press, and has written 5 popular science books, which now appear in 25 languages -- Euclid's Window: The story of geometry from parallel lines to hyperspace (2001); Feynman's Rainbow: a search for beauty in physics and in life (2003);  A Briefer History of Time (2005, co-authored with Stephen Hawking); the New York Times best-seller, editor’s choice, and notable book of the year, The Drunkard’s Walk: the story of randomness and its role in our lives (2008), short listed for the Royal Society book award; and the #1 best seller The Grand Design (2010, co-authored with Stephen Hawking).  With Matt Costello, he co-authored the children’s book series The Kids of Einstein Elementary.  Dr. Mlodinow also wrote for network television for many years, including the series MacGyver, and Star Trek, Next Generation, and the comedy Night Court, has appeared in front of the camera on numerous television talk shows including Larry King Live on CNN.  His writing awards include the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking and the Liber Press Award from the Spanish publisher.  He was also a pioneer in computer games, as producer, executive producer and designer of several award-winning games.  Between 1997 and 2003 he was Vice President for software development for the New York publisher Scholastic Inc., the U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter series, where he created a children’s games division and built it into one of the top five in the United States.