Moran Cerf

Artist, Scientist, Writer/Editor

Moran Cerf is a professor of neuroscience (department of neurosurgery, LIJ) and business (Kellogg School of Management). Dr. Cerf holds a Ph.D in neuroscience from Caltech, as well as an M.A in Philosophy and a B.Sc in Physics from Tel-Aviv University. In 2016 he was named among the "40 best professors below 40". His research uses methods from neuroscience to understand the underlying mechanisms of our psychology. He works with patients undergoing brain-surgery to study behavior, emotion, decision making and dreams, by directly recording the activity of individual nerve cells using electrodes implanted in their brain. He has published works that address questions such as: "How are conscious percepts formed in our brain?", "How can we control our emotions?" and "Which brain mechanisms determine if we find content interesting and engaging?". Recently, his focus has been on the neural mechanisms that underlie decision-making, thereby offering a new perspective on predicting future choices and investigating how much free will we have in our decisions. He holds multiple patents and his works have been published in wide-circulation journals such as Nature and Science, as well as Scientific American Mind and leading neuroscience journals. Dr. Cerf’s work has been featured in numerous media and cultural outlets such as CNN, Wired, BBC, Bloomberg, NPR, Time, MSNBC, Slate.Com, Gizmodo, New Scientist and dozens of others, and he has been featured in venues such as the Venice Art Biennial and China’s AST. Dr. Cerf has made much of his research accessible to the general public via his public talks at TEDx, TED-Ed, PopTech, Google Zeitgeist, the Davos World Economic Forum, DLD and more. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Cerf spent nearly a decade in industry, holding managerial and development positions in computers security (as a hacker), pharmaceutical (CTO), telecom (product architect), Fashion, software development, and innovations development. Dr. Cerf has had additional short-lived careers as a furniture-designer, a pilot, a radio host, and a filmmaker. He participates regularly in story-telling competitions and is a 3-time Moth Grand-Slam champion. Additionally, Dr. Cerf is the Alfred P. Sloan professor at the American Film Institute (AFI), where he teaches an annual screenwriting class on science in films. Most importantly, he is right handed.

Hacking, Neuroscience