Jorge Cham, Engineer-Turned Cartoonist, Writer, and Producer
Dwayne W. Godwin, Professor of Translational Neuroscience, Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Activity stations led by members of the following labs:
Lichtman lab (Harvard), Manoach lab (MGH), Gaab lab (Harvard GSE), Computational Cognitive Development Lab (Harvard GSE), Zhang lab (MGH), Sun lab (BIDMC), Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience (BCH), Liberles Lab (HMS).
Advanced Registration Required. Free event parking at 52 Oxford Street Garage.
How much do we know about the brain? How much remains a mystery? Join us in celebrating Brain Awareness Week with a special event hosted jointly by the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Harvard Brain Science Initiative. The evening will begin with short talks by bestselling author and cartoonist Jorge Cham and neuroscientist Dwayne Godwin, coauthors of Out of Your Mind: The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain (2025, Pantheon), and will be followed by a book signing and opportunities to meet and chat with Harvard brain scientists in the museum galleries.
Copies of Out of Your Mind will be on sale at The Shop at HMNH.
A cash bar with wine, beer, and other beverages, will be available. Valid government ID is required to consume alcoholic beverages.
Presented in collaboration with the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
Jorge Cham is a Daytime Emmy-nominated and bestselling cartoonist/creator of the popular online comic strip “Piled Higher and Deeper” (known as PhD Comics—phdcomics.com). He is the cocreator, executive producer, and creative director of Elinor Wonders Why, one of the highest-rated animated shows on PBS Kids, and the coauthor of two popular science books: the bestselling and award-winning We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe and Frequently Asked Questions about the Universe, as well as the children’s book Oliver’s Great Big Universe. Jorge is also the cohost and cocreator of “Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe,” a popular podcast and radio show. He obtained his PhD in robotics from Stanford University and was an instructor and research associate at the California Institute of Technology from 2003–2005. He is originally from Panama.
Dwayne Godwin is a neuroscientist, educator, and academic leader who is a professor in the Department of Translational Neuroscience and served as graduate dean at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His research centers on the cellular basis of abnormal brain rhythms, including active projects on calcium channel function, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury. His goal is to use emerging insights about the brain to develop treatments and potential cures for neurological diseases. His science outreach includes “Mind in Pictures, cocreated with Jorge Cham for Scientific American Mind, as well as blogs for the Society for Neuroscience and the Museum of the Moving Image.