A couple of weeks ago, Mickey Inzlicht and Yoel Inbar, of the excellent podcast Two Psychologists Four Beers, released a discussion of theirs called 'Against Academia?' The motivation for the discussion was that Mickey had noticed several occasions on which people -- one of them being himself -- were called out for expressing positive takes on life in academia. The mainstream position to hold on academic life is a negative one: it's a biased system, a pyramid scheme, a travesty for mental health, etc. They break down a number of considerations on both sides, digging into where some of these claims are identifying something real and important and other areas where they are exaggerations. Both Mickey and Yoel are tenured professors at an excellent university, and they acknowledge that their view is one of the better ones you can get in an academic appointment. It's a really useful conversation that brings up a lot of worthwhile, well-considered points. I'd like to add to it by responding to it from my own perspective: as someone currently doing a PhD who does not plan to pursue an academic career.Full transcript: https://www.codykommers.com/post/actually-against-academia Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He's best known as the developer of the theory of multiple intelligences, the idea that being smart is more complex than just an IQ score. That theory was introduced in his 1983 book Frames of Mind. In this conversation we talk about his interdisciplinary education, his non-traditional path in academia, the principles of the "synthesizing mind," when to break the rules and when to follow them, and how to connect with one's deeper humanity. Howard's latest book, A Synthesizing Mind, is out now.More info: codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

Yael Niv is a professor in Princeton department of psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. She is also a discernibly high-quality human being. I have been an admirer of her and her work for many years now. But she's been in the fore of my mind of late because of a couple papers she recently published: on "The Primacy of Behavioral Research in Understanding the Brain" and "The Case Against Economic Values in the Brain" (co-authored with Benjamin Hayden). In this interview, we mostly talk about her background as a psychologically-oriented computational neuroscientist, which has been impressively focused from relatively early on. It's clear how a lot of the ideas that are gaining wide-spread attention (even outside the usual circles of computational neuroscience) having been circling in the heads of Yael and her colleagues for a long time. We talk about the origins of her behavioral primacy paper, as well as the best advice on mentoring she learned from Peter Dayan. It's a fun conversation, and I hope you enjoy!More info: codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

Barry Wellman was instrumental in developing the modern understanding of social networks. Barry co-founded the International Network for Social Network Analysis in 1977, with Bev Wellman. The original ideas surrounding social networks began with sociologists -- especially Harrison White, of Harvard, with whom Barry studied -- who were changing the understanding of how people related in society. Barry continued to develop these ideas throughout his long career at Toronto. In many ways, this strain of sociological research is crucial for understanding our modern conception of social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. Barry is the author or editor of several books, including “Networked: The New Social Operating System” co-authored with Lee Rainie. Keep an eye out for his new book, on academic writing, which is due out in 2021.More info: codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

Susan Goldin-Meadow is the 2021 recipient for the Rumelhart prize, the highest award in cognitive science. She has amassed an amazing body of research throughout her career. It centers on gesture, and how our bodies integrate into our linguistic communication. We touch on a lot of her greatest research hits in this episode. Something she said that stood out to me was about how she mentors her many students. She sets them on a research project to get them going, then listens to how they talk about it, really listens. In a sense, this kind of deep, empathic, multi-faceted listening is what Susan has been doing her entire career. She listens to things the rest of us seem not to hear -- from gestures in the deaf children to the proclivities of her students. Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

In this episode I talk to Richard Shweder, one of the founders of the field of cultural psychology. He has had a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary career. We talk about his roots, early education, biggest influences, his experience as a grad student at the Department of Social Relations, the origins of cultural psychology, and his recent work on pluralism. Ultimately the conversation reflects Rick's gift as a psychologist and anthropologist: observing the world for what it is. It's a long one, but we cover a lot of good stuff.More info: codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

One thing that's immediately clear about Annie Duke is that her best self is pretty damn awesome. In this conversation, we get deep into the story of her career and the key moments that defined who that best self is. It gets really personal really quick. We start off with a discussion of her family, and in particular how she learned to separate work from identity. From there we talk about the big steps in her trajectory, from leaving her PhD program with one month left to go, to deciding on becoming a professional poker player. Then we get into her books: first, Thinking in Bets, as well as her new book, How to Decide. It's a wide ranging conversation, and we cover a lot of interesting ground. Ultimately it comes back to the role of mentors -- Annie has had some great ones in her life -- and how their job is to help you find the best version of yourself.More info: codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

Don Norman is a cognitive scientist and designer. He is perhaps best known for his book "The Design of Everyday Things." This was a landmark work which detailed the fundamentals of human-centered design. It is a conception of design not just based on how things looks, but how people think. And while this book has been most influential among designers and other practitioners, its origin is in Don's work as a cognitive scientist. Throughout his career he has found himself in many of the most exciting times and places in the field's history, including the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard, led by George Miller and Jerome Bruner, and in the very first years of UC San Diego's department of cognitive science. In this episode we talk about Don's career, his process for finding and learning about big ideas, the difference between academics and practitioners, the cognitive science origins of Don's design work, how Don went about crafting his style of prose, and a host of other topics. It's a fun one.More info: https://www.codykommers.com/post/34-don-norman Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

In this episode, I go in-depth with Mahzarin Banaji on her life story. Mahzarin started off just about as far away from life as a Harvard professor as you can imagine. And while she's a superstar of social psychology now, her introduction to the field was a chance encounter with a set of the five volume Handbook of Social Psychology, which she haggled down to a dollar per book at a random market in a train station. She's a truly fascinating human being, as well as a top-notch scientist.More info: codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

This week's guest is neuroscientist, filmmaker, and inimitable personality Sade Abiodun. She is a first year PhD student the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and her latest film project was Godspeed. This short film has done well on the festival circuit, and Sade was a finalist for the highly selective Sundance fellowship. In this episode, we talk about the difficulties of starting grad school, especially while a world-wide pandemic is in progress. In particular, we talk about balancing grad school projects with non-grad school projects (e.g., filmmaking, podcasting), and the opportunity for reinvention of identity that beginning a new program offers. We also talk about the connection between neuroscience and film, in using experimental paradigms with naturalistic stimuli. We try our best to get #neurocinematics to become a cultural phenomenon. Finally, we talk about a paper Sade wrote a couple years back on academia and race, a conversation which has -- how should I put this? -- been brought up with renewed fervor over the past few months. She summarizes the perspective she gave in that paper and how it might be updated in response to current events.You can find more about Sade's work at her website: https://www.sade.space/More info on this show is available here: https://www.codykommers.com/podcast Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com