Advisory Boards

Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Carl Eis­dor­fer is the Direc­tor of the Cen­ter on Aging at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mia­mi School of Med­i­cine; and Co-Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Research and Edu­ca­tion on Aging and Tech­nol­o­gy Enhance­ment. He has authored over 315 sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles pri­mar­i­ly in aging. He has served as Pres­i­dent of the Geron­to­log­i­cal Soci­ety of Amer­i­ca, the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, and the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Aging Research. Dr. Eis­dor­fer received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from New York Uni­ver­si­ty and his M.D. and Psy­chi­atric train­ing from Duke University.

Dr. Joaquin Fuster is Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try and Biobe­hav­ioral Sci­ences at the Neu­ropsy­chi­atric Insti­tute and Brain Research Insti­tute of Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Los Ange­les’ School of Med­i­cine. Fuster’s long research career has had wide-rang­ing impli­ca­tions for our under­stand­ing of the brain mech­a­nisms of cognition.

Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg is Sharp­Brains Co-Founder and Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­sor. Dr. Gold­berg is an author, sci­en­tist, edu­ca­tor and clin­i­cian, inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned for his clin­i­cal work, research, writ­ings and teach­ing in neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science. He is a Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy at New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, and Diplo­mate of The Amer­i­can Board of Pro­fes­sion­al Psy­chol­o­gy in Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy. A stu­dent and close asso­ciate of the great neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist Alexan­der Luria, Dr. Gold­berg has con­tin­ued to advance Luri­a’s sci­en­tif­ic and clin­i­cal tra­di­tion, and writ­ten pop­u­lar sci­ence books such as The Exec­u­tive Brain and The Wis­dom Para­dox. In-depth inter­view avail­able here.

Dr. Ken­neth Kosik is the Co-Direc­tor, Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San­ta Bar­bara. From 1980 until 2005 he held var­i­ous appoint­ments at the Har­vard Med­ical School where he became Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science in 1996. He has received a Whitak­er Health Sci­ences Award from Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, a Met­ro­pol­i­tan Life Foun­da­tion Med­ical Award, the Derek Den­ny-Brown Neu­ro­log­i­cal Schol­ar Award from the Amer­i­can Neu­ro­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion, the Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion, and a NASA Group Achieve­ment Award to the Neu­ro­lab Sci­ence Team.

Dr. Arthur Kramer is a Pro­fes­sor in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois Depart­ment of Psy­chol­o­gy, the Cam­pus Neu­ro­science Pro­gram, the Beck­man Insti­tute, and the Direc­tor of the Bio­med­ical Imag­ing Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois. He has pub­lished mul­ti­ple stud­ies and meta-analy­ses on the cog­ni­tive and struc­tur­al effect of phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise, and was one of the researchers who devel­oped Space Fortress. In-depth inter­view avail­able here.

Baba Shiv is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Mar­ket­ing at Stan­ford Busi­ness School. His research is in the area of con­sumer deci­sion mak­ing and deci­sion neu­ro­science, with spe­cif­ic empha­sis on the role of emo­tion in deci­sion mak­ing, the neu­ro­log­i­cal bases of emo­tion, and non­con­scious men­tal process­es in deci­sion mak­ing. His recent work exam­ines the poten­tial for non­con­scious place­bo effects relat­ed to pric­ing and the empir­i­cal valid­i­ty of the adage, “Eat­ing Whets the Appetite,”. An Asso­ciate Edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Research and on the edi­to­r­i­al board of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Psy­chol­o­gy and the Jour­nal of Mar­ket­ing Research, Pro­fes­sor Shiv has also served as a con­sul­tant for sev­er­al mar­ket­ing, law and invest­ment firms.

Dr. Robert Syl­west­er is an Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor of Edu­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon, inter­est­ed in the edu­ca­tion­al impli­ca­tions of new devel­op­ments in sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy. He is the author of sev­er­al books and many jour­nal arti­cles. His most recent book is The Ado­les­cent Brain: Reach­ing for Auton­o­my. The Edu­ca­tion Press Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca has giv­en him two Dis­tin­guished Achieve­ment Awards for his syn­the­ses of cog­ni­tive sci­ence research, pub­lished in Edu­ca­tion­al Lead­er­ship. In-depth inter­view avail­able here.

Business Advisory Board

Dr. Sam Gold­stein is a fac­ul­ty mem­ber at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah School of Med­i­cine and on staff at the Uni­ver­si­ty Neu­ropsy­chi­atric Insti­tute. Dr. Gold­stein has authored twen­ty-two texts, numer­ous book chap­ters and peer reviewed research arti­cles. He cur­rent­ly serves as Edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Atten­tion Dis­or­ders and sits on the edi­to­r­i­al boards of five peer reviewed journals.

Susan Hoff­man launched the San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty’s Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute and now leads the Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute at UC-Berke­ley. Susan is a Board mem­ber of Gate­way High School. For many years, she ran a per­form­ing arts venue at Fort Mason Cen­ter and rep­re­sent­ed arts orga­ni­za­tions in Sacra­men­to and Wash­ing­ton as the state’s arts advocate.

Robin Klaus is the Chair­man of Club One Fit­ness Cen­ters. His expe­ri­ence encom­pass­es exec­u­tive man­age­ment posi­tions includ­ing pres­i­dent and chief oper­at­ing offi­cer of fit­ness man­u­fac­tur­er Star Trac, cur­rent chair­man of Plan­et Fit­ness, and for­mer chair­man of Amer­i­can Sports Insti­tute. Mr. Klaus cur­rent­ly serves on the board of direc­tors of Napa Sono­ma Sum­mer Search. Mr. Klaus holds a bach­e­lor’s in inter­na­tion­al rela­tions from Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty, a mas­ter’s in inter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­si­ty of Pitts­burgh and a mas­ter’s in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion from Stanford.

Nataliya Riabokon is Pres­i­dent and CEO of Uvar­ta, Inc. Pri­or to found­ing Uvar­ta, Nataliya found­ed, built and led Lohi­ka Sys­tems. Pri­or to Lohi­ka, Nataliya held sev­er­al exec­u­tive man­age­ment posi­tions at Ernst & Young, and devel­oped a sig­nif­i­cant pri­vate equi­ty and ven­ture cap­i­tal expe­ri­ence in the US and the UK. Nataliya is a mem­ber of the Grow­ing Entre­pre­neurs Men­tor­ing Pro­gram admin­is­tered by the Com­mit­tee of 200, a nation­al orga­ni­za­tion of promi­nent women busi­ness exec­u­tives. Nataliya holds an MBA from Stan­ford Busi­ness School.

Mark Shaw is a mar­ket­ing exec­u­tive who has been involved in the cre­ation, devel­op­ment or launch of sev­er­al online and offline con­sumer brands. He was part of the team that built Marie Cal­len­der’s into a retail super­mar­ket brand. Next, he con­ceived of and devel­oped Net­gro­cer, the first nation­al online super­mar­ket. Mark received his JD from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia and MBA from Stan­ford University.

Iwan Stre­ichen­berg­er is Pres­i­dent of Edu­soft and Cor­po­rate Vice Pres­i­dent of Houghton Mif­flin. Iwan began his career in 1996 as an invest­ment banker at Cred­it Suisse First Boston. In 1997, he was named busi­ness con­troller and chief tech­nol­o­gy offi­cer at L’O­re­al South Africa. In 1999, he joined Boston Con­sult­ing Group as a senior asso­ciate. He left BCG to become chief finan­cial offi­cer and vice pres­i­dent of busi­ness devel­op­ment at Flip­side Europe, a Viven­di Uni­ver­sal Pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny, where he was appoint­ed chief oper­at­ing offi­cer in 2001.