Tali Sharot

Tali Sharot is the director of the Affective Brain Lab. She is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the department of Experimental Psychology and The Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry at University College London and on the faculty of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Prof. Sharot is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and has held fellowships from the British Academy and the Forum of European Philosophy. She is the Deputy Editor (neuroscience) for Science Advances as well as on the board of several other academic journals. Sharot holds a BA in Economics and Psychology from Tel Aviv University and a PhD from New York University. Sharot’s research integrates neuroscience behavioural economics and psychology to study how emotion and motivation influences people’s beliefs, decisions and social interactions. Awards in recognition of this work include twice the British Psychological Society Book Award and the Society for Neuroeconomics Early Career Award, among others. Prof. Sharot’s books – The Optimism Bias (2011) and The Influential Mind (2017) – have been praised by outlets including the NYT, Times, Forbes and more. In addition to her academic role, Sharot has served as a consultant for large global companies and government projects, as well as on the board of several companies. Her two TED talks have been viewed more than 15 million times total. She has written multiple Op-Eds for the NYT, Time, Guardian, Washington Post, CNN and others.