The Emotional Brain: The Science and Anthropology of Aggression
Speakers
-
Professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Rutgers University-Newark
R. Brian Ferguson is a cultural/historical anthropologist who has studied war for three decades. His publications analyse war among tribal peoples, ancient states, in the early archaeological record, recent identity-linked conflicts, and counterinsurgency. His goal has been to develop a unified theoretical approach that applies across contexts. Two other interests are the origins of organised crime and the development of policing in New York City. He directs the graduate programme in Peace and Conflict Studies at Rutgers University-Newark.
-
Professor of Biology, Investigator, California Institute of Technology
David J. Anderson, PhD, is Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology at Caltech and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. His laboratory studies the neural circuitry of emotional behaviours in both mice and fruit flies. Dr. Anderson received his AB at Harvard and PhD at Rockefeller University where he trained with Nobelist Günter Blobel. Following postdoctoral studies at Columbia University with Nobelist Richard Axel, Dr. Anderson joined the Caltech faculty in 1986. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
-
Professor, University of Michigan
John Mitani is the James N. Spuhler Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is a primate behavioural ecologist who investigates the behaviour of our closest living relatives, the apes. During the past 34 years, he has conducted fieldwork on the behaviour of all five kinds of apes: gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees. His current research involves studies of an extremely large community of wild chimpanzees at Ngogo, Kibale National Park, Uganda.
-
Came in this world on Dec 25 th 1949, raised in a refugee settlement of Karachi, lived my first 22 years in this settlement. Did my primary school in St. Agnes?s, then in PECHS girls high school, my high school in St. Josphes High School, did my tenth grade, married in 1966, had the three great children you 72 also completed my bachelors, did courses in Montessori education, build a home and family, in 1977 join Karachi University in 1977,graduated in masters In social work with gold medal Rana Liaqat Ali, community organizer in a UNICEF low cost sanitation project. Build 5000 onsite pit toilets in a low income settlement Baldia town, a model that became national. Started home schools, Community based primarily health care. Transfer these models to Balochistan.in 1987, build 3000 toilets, later worked with government in establishing 2200 girls schools across Balochistan, enrolling 200,000 girls, created and establish IDSP, for young people. IDSP helped 1,80,000 young ones to graduate from idsp . Now creating a University of Community Development in Balochistan.
-
Head of Department of Psychological Medicine, Kings College London
Simon Wessely is Professor and Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine and Vice Dean for Academic Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. He has a Doctorate in Epidemiology and has over 600 original publications, with an emphasis on the boundaries of medicine and psychiatry, unexplained symptoms and syndromes, population reactions to adversity and epidemiology. He has co-authored books on chronic fatigue syndrome, randomised controlled trials and a history of military psychiatry.
-
Dr Taddy Blecher is CEO of the Community and Individual Development Association; the Maharishi Invincibility Institute and the Imvula Empowerment Trust, and National Chairperson of the SA Government team on Entrepreneurship, Education, & Employability. He is a pioneer of the free tertiary education movement in South Africa, helping create six free access institutions of higher learning.
Dr Blecher co-founded the Branson School of Entrepreneurship with Sir Richard Branson, and has raised over R1 billion in cash, property and equity to support free access to post-secondary school education, and to modernizing the South African school system. As a result, over 20,000 unemployed South Africans have been educated, found employment and moved from poverty to the middle-class. These formerly unemployed youth (70% women) now have combined salaries in excess of R1.425 Billion Rand per annum. and expected life-time earnings of R41.85 billion. Over 600,000 young South Africans in schools have been reached with one-week education and life-skills training courses.
Dr Blecher was chosen as one of 21 Icons in South Africa, a World Economic Forum "Global Leader of Tomorrow" award recipient, a World Economic Forum "Young Global Leader of the World", a Skoll Social Entrepreneur winning a $1 million prize, and has been awarded with two honorary doctorates. In 2009 he was named by author Tom Peters as one of his top 5 most influential entrepreneurs in the world over the last 30 years. Over 65 published books have profiled Dr Blecher’s work.
A qualified actuary and management consultant, Dr Blecher is passionate about the approach of Consciousness-Based Education, a system of education developing the full potential of every student. This has led the Maharishi Invincibility Institute to winning the first prize in a global competition to find the most innovative education initiative in the world.
