About this Blog

Your Win­dow into the Brain Fit­ness Rev­o­lu­tion aims to offer a mix of fun brain teasers and seri­ous com­men­tary, focused on the appli­ca­tions of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science on health, edu­ca­tion and training.

Our mis­sion is to make brain/ mind/ men­tal fit­ness avail­able to all by rais­ing pub­lic aware­ness and help­ing nav­i­gate neu­ro­science-based prod­ucts and pro­grams, a.k.a. “brain gyms.”

Edi­tor:

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez is Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Sharp­Brains. He holds an MBA and MA in Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. Alvaro start­ed his career in McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny in Europe and has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the launch of online book­store Ber­tels­mann Online, the turn­around of cor­po­rate e‑learning com­pa­ny Docent, Inc, and the launch of a new busi­ness unit of Edu­soft, a Houghton Mif­flin com­pa­ny. He enjoys advis­ing the man­age­ment teams at social enter­pris­es Ashoka, abcd espanol and Arcan­d­i­na, and teach­ing the class Exer­cis­ing Our Brains at the Bay Area Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Center.

Con­tribut­ing Editor:

Car­o­line Lath­am serves as Direc­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions for Sharp­Brains. She received her under­grad­u­ate degree in exper­i­men­tal psy­chol­o­gy from David­son Col­lege and worked in research labs study­ing human mem­o­ry, pain per­cep­tion, ocu­lo­mo­tor behav­ior, and atten­tion. After sev­er­al years work­ing towards a com­bined MD/PhD in neu­ro­surgery and neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Med­ical Branch, she launched her career work­ing with med­ical and health-relat­ed com­pa­nies and publications.

Advi­sors:

Dr. Phil Delio, Asso­ciate Direc­tor of Stroke Ser­vices at the Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Insti­tute of San­ta Bar­bara. For­mer Chief Neu­rol­o­gy Res­i­dent at Stan­ford University.

Dr. David Gamon is a best-sell­ing author focused on mak­ing brain research excit­ing and acces­si­ble to all read­ers. While Build­ing Men­tal Mus­cle is his best-known work, he has authored or co-authored a total of 10 books in the Brain­waves line of pop­u­lar brain sci­ence books. He stud­ied Ger­man lit­er­a­ture at Reed Col­lege and cog­ni­tive sci­ence at U.C. Berke­ley, where he received his Ph.D. in Lin­guis­tics. He serves as con­tribut­ing writer to the Curi­ous Mind newslet­ter and the Sci­ence­Mas­ter sci­ence edu­ca­tion web­site, win­ner of the Nation­al Acad­e­my Press’s “Coolest Sci­ence Site” award. His cur­rent projects include books about the brain’s con­struc­tion of sen­so­ry real­i­ty; humor and the brain; the sci­ence of psy­chopa­thy; and the evo­lu­tion of language.

Dr. Elkhonon 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.

Susan Hoff­man launched and now leads the San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty’s Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute, and is a Board mem­ber of Gate­way High school. Susan’s cre­ative work-screen­plays, sto­ries, com­men­taries- has appeared in small press and main­stream pub­li­ca­tions as well as on-screen. 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.