Recognized as a national thought leader in early language development, Dr. Dana Suskind has dedicated her research and clinical life to optimizing foundational brain development and preventing early cognitive disparities and their lifelong impact. She is founder and co-director of the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, which aims to create a population-level shift in the knowledge and behavior of parents and caregivers to optimize the foundational brain development in children from b...
Nov 04, 2022•43 min•Ep. 207
If exercise is so healthy, then why do many people dislike or avoid it? So much of our modern lives is sedentary, it’s more important than ever to get our bodies up and be active. Daniel Lieberman is a Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, and the Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences at Harvard University. He is also a member of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. At Harvard, he teaches a variety of courses on human evolution, anatomy, and p...
Nov 02, 2022•50 min•Ep. 206
Martha Minow has taught at Harvard Law School since 1981, where her courses include civil procedure, constitutional law, fairness and privacy, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop. An expert in human rights and advocacy for members of racial and religious minorities and for women, children, and persons with disabilities, she also writes and teaches about digital communications, democracy, privatization,...
Oct 31, 2022•59 min•Ep. 205
How can you be both interdisciplinary and be a contributing specialist in your discipline in this day andage? It's a core theme of this podcast, as well as our guests' research. Diane Coyle is the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. Diane co-directs the Bennett Institute where she heads research under the themes of progress and productivity. Her latest book is “Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be” on how economics needs to change to keep pac...
Oct 28, 2022•50 min•Ep. 204
No one will accuse our next guest of doing philosophy in an isolated fashion. Julian Baggini is a writer and philosopher, and currently the Director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. His latest book is titled “How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy.” Julian is also the co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine and has written for numerous international newspapers and magazines. Julian and Greg discuss the legacy of Hume in this episode, while also diving into how someone can sta...
Oct 26, 2022•55 min•Ep. 203
Since its initial publication, “ The Business of Venture Capital” has been hailed as the definitive, most comprehensive book on the subject. In its upcoming third edition, this market-leading text explains the multiple facets of the business of venture capital, from raising venture funds, to structuring investments, to generating consistent returns, to evaluating exit strategies. Mahendra Ramsinghani is the founder of Secure Octane, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, which invests in...
Oct 24, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 202
Every time we make a choice, our minds go through an elaborate process most of us never even notice. We’re influenced by subtle aspects of the way the choice is presented that often make the difference between a good decision and a bad one. How do we overcome the common faults in our decision-making and enable better choices in any situation? This question and more are answered in our guests latest book, "The Elements of Choice: Why the Way We Decide Matters." Eric Johnson is a faculty member ...
Oct 21, 2022•54 min•Ep. 201
Dr. Robert Cialdini has spent his entire career conducting scientific research on what leads people to say “Yes” to requests and appeals. The results of his research, his ensuing articles, and New York Times bestselling books have earned him an acclaimed reputation as a respected scientist and engaging storyteller. His books, including “Influence” and “ Pre-Suasion ,” have sold more than 7-million copies in 44 different languages. Robert is also the Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and ...
Oct 19, 2022•53 min•Ep. 200
Lydia Pyne’s work may loosely be called history, but it's really a combination of the sciences and the humanities. It's a reflection on how we make sense of ourselves and our past. Lydia is a writer and historian, interested in the history of science and material culture. She has degrees in history and anthropology and a PhD in biology (history and philosophy of science) from Arizona State University. Her field and archival work has ranged from South Africa, Ethiopia, and Uzbekistan, as well as ...
Oct 17, 2022•47 min•Ep. 199
Innovation seems to occur at uneven rates across different countries. At a time when we’re so intimately connected in all fields and industries, its interesting that there are still such vastly different kinds of technology and innovation happening at the same time all over the world. Dr. Mark Zachary Taylor, formerly a solid-state physicist, now specializes in S&T politics and policy, political economy, the American presidency, and comparative politics. In his research, he tries to understa...
Oct 14, 2022•50 min•Ep. 198
You may not believe it, but there is a link between our current political instability and your childhood attachment to teddy bears. There's also a reason why children in Asia are more likely to share than their western counterparts and why the poor spend more of their income on luxury goods than the rich. Or why your mother is more likely to leave her money to you than your father. What connects these things? The answer is our need for ownership. How does our urge to acquire control our behaviou...
Oct 12, 2022•52 min•Ep. 197
Having a background in planetary science gives our guest an interesting perspective on the world. In his work, Lewis can tie together things like the existence of humanity, and how the human experience has been impacted or even made possible by things like the movement of the tectonic plates and the great oxidation event. Lewis Dartnell is a research scientist, and author based in London, UK. His books include “The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch,” and “Origins: How the Earth Ma...
Oct 10, 2022•53 min•Ep. 196
For a podcast called unSILOed, you really can’t think of a more perfect guest than John Hennessy. From being a founder of a company, to a scholar, to a book author and an administrator, John has straddled many a silo in his career. John Hennessy is an American computer scientist, academician and businessman who serves as Chairman of Alphabet Inc. Hennessy is one of the founders of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. as well as Atheros and served as the tenth President of Stanford University. A pioneer in...
Oct 07, 2022•54 min•Ep. 195
The minute you walk into an elevator, everybody is immediately sizing up each other to figure out who is high and low status. When you're driving down the road, you can't help but think that someone's trying to “out status” you by accelerating past you or cutting you off. Status is everywhere, even if we're not conscious of it. Will Storr is an author, and former photographer and journalist. His books include, “The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It: On Social Position and How We Use ...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 194
Well, Rick Sander has been working on questions of social and economic inequality for nearly all of his career. From being an activist in Chicago back in the day, to his published works, Rick truly understands the longstanding roots of residential segregation in the United States, and how it continues to evolve. But there is still some confusion about the origins of segregation and how it affects us, from our neighborhoods to our universities and everywhere in between. Rick is a professor of law...
Oct 03, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 193
Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria in...
Sep 30, 2022•56 min•Ep. 192
When trying to figure out how to understand humans, we tend to look to our nearest neighbors: bonobos, chimps, and monkeys. But our guest Mark Moffett believes that in many ways, we're unlike chimps and more aligned with social insects like wasps and ants. Mark Moffett is known for documenting new species and behaviors during his exploration of remote places in more than a hundred countries. He is a high school dropout who began doing research in biology in college and went on to complete a PhD ...
Sep 28, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 191
Lee Dugatkin is a professor of biology at the University of Louisville and the author of many books, including what Greg calls one of the seminal texts in the area of evolutionary biology, “Principles of Animal Behavior.” Lee’s other books include “Power in the Wild: The Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Ways Animals Strive for Control over Others," How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog,” and “ Cheating Monkeys and Citizen Bees.” Lee joins Greg in this episode to cover only a few of his many areas of researc...
Sep 26, 2022•54 min•Ep. 190
When Alex Budak first started his course “Becoming a Changemaker” at UC Berkeley, he had to turn students away because it was too popular. This course was the first of its kind, providing experiential teaching that ignites the inner changemaker in students and future leaders from around the world. People are craving change. Alex Budak calls himself a social entrepreneur. He is also a faculty member at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and the author of the upcoming book, “Becoming a Changem...
Sep 23, 2022•53 min•Ep. 189
Its no surprise to anyone in academia that the liberal arts and humanities are in crisis. Liberal arts colleges are closing down, departments are closing down, and students are fleeing from majoring in the social sciences. So what happened to this once essential element of higher education? Roosevelt Montás is Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University. There, he teaches “Introduction to Contemporary Civilization in the West,” a year-long course on primary texts in mo...
Sep 21, 2022•56 min•Ep. 188
Character is a uniquely human feature, based on questions of agency, responsibility, free will and choice. But what qualifies as good or bad character, and how do we decide where we fall in this spectrum? Christian Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University, and currently the Director of the Honesty Project. His main areas of research are meta-ethics, moral psychology, moral character, action theory, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of over 100 academi...
Sep 19, 2022•58 min•Ep. 187
Its difficult to describe the work our guest Stephen Asma does, falling at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, religion, and study of the emotions. Greg calls it “Affective Neuro Philosophy.” So many different disciplines converge on what he is doing, but really it’s all about trying to understand humans. Stephen Asma is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago, where he is also Senior Fellow of the Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture, and he is the author of ten books...
Sep 16, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 186
Philip Delves Broughton was a news journalist before going to business school. And he ended up continuing his career as a writer since leaving. Now, there are not many journalists that have been to business school, giving Philip a unique perspective on this branch of academia. Philip is a journalist and author, now known for his business journalism. His books include “Ahead of the Curve” and “The Art of the Sale.” He chats with Greg about why he went to business school after being a journalist, ...
Sep 09, 2022•51 min•Ep. 185
You can apply economics to just about anything. Economics provides you with a perspective and a toolbox that enables you to see things that you wouldn't otherwise see before. This is part of our guests specialty, with books titles like “An Economist Goes to the Game: How to Throw Away $580 Million and Other Surprising Insights from the Economics of Sports,” and “Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Economics I Learned from Online Dating.” Paul Oyer is the Mary and Rankine Van Anda Entrepreneur...
Sep 07, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 184
We’ve all had to deal with problematic bosses or coworkers at some point in our career journeys. But the issue is how can you deal with them in a productive way, so everyone still feels comfortable in the workplace and gets their work done. Tessa West is a Professor of Psychology at New York University and a leading expert in the science of interpersonal communication. Her research focuses on questions such as: How can we improve communication across cultural and national divides, and what hurdl...
Sep 05, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 183
Has the idea of “peak performance” as the general public sees it, run its course? It seems like nowadays, there is much more of a focus & value placed upon rest and recuperation, rather than the unsustainable burnout culture & hustle to get ahead that we’ve seen for ages. Brad Stulberg is a writer and fellow at the University of Michigan’s graduate school of public health. He says his work explores principles of mastery and well-being that transcend capabilities and domains, with a focus...
Sep 02, 2022•54 min•Ep. 182
We don't really question the importance of studying mathematics, or the importance of studying science. We don't even question the importance of athletics! But when it comes to the arts, people don't really understand their significance. They think of them as frills, as fun and pretty, but they don't understand their deep significance for humans. Ellen Winner's research focuses on cognition in the arts in typical and gifted children. She studies the impact of arts education on the development of...
Aug 31, 2022•57 min•Ep. 181
Can we teach leaders to become better strategic decision makers? Our guest Zach Shore says we can. Part of the problem he says is that people get stuck in rigid mindsets, which often involve the failure to take alternative perspectives.. In his books “Blunder: Why Smart People Make Bad Decisions,” and “sense of the enemy’ he aims to create a taxonomy of blunder causing mindsets and recount examples of effective strategic empathy through historical story telling. Zach Shore is a historian of inte...
Aug 29, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 180
In our guest's latest book “Sick to Debt,” Peter Ubel theorizes whether it is a bigger insult to call someone a doctor or an economist. Well, Peter is actually both! Peter Ubel M.D. is a physician and behavioral scientist whose research and writing explores the mixture of rational and irrational forces that affect our health, our happiness and the way our society functions. Ubel is the Madge and Dennis T. McLawhorn University Professor of Business, Public Policy and Medicine at the Duke Universi...
Aug 26, 2022•58 min•Ep. 179
When was the last time you learned something just out of curiosity? Not for school or to advance your career, with no end goal in sight. To learn something new just to learn it? Zena Hitz is a Tutor at St. John’s College in Annapolis and the author of “Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life.” Her book explores the meaning and the value of learning through images and stories of bookworms, philosophers, scientists, and other learners, both fictional and historical. She write...
Aug 24, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 178
