Meet the 16 Judges of the 2010 Brain Fitness Innovation Awards

We are hon­ored to count on such a dis­tin­guished, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and for­ward-look­ing Inno­va­tion Awards Judg­ing Pan­el (please judge for your­self!), thanks to the par­tic­i­pa­tion of:

Baba Shiv, Pro­fes­sor at Stan­ford Busi­ness School, con­ducts research on con­sumer deci­sion mak­ing and deci­sion neu­ro­science, with spe­cif­ic empha­sis on the neu­ro­log­i­cal under­pin­nings of emo­tion and moti­va­tion in deci­sion mak­ing. His recent work exam­ines the poten­tial for non­con­scious place­bo effects relat­ed to pric­ing. He is cur­rent­ly the edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Research and sits on the edi­to­r­i­al board of the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Psy­chol­o­gy and the Jour­nal of Mar­ket­ing Research.

Bill Tuck­er, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor, is a social entre­pre­neur who has found­ed and led both non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions and for-prof­it com­pa­nies. He is respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing the day-to-day oper­a­tions of Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor, and also leads pol­i­cy work focused on tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion. His involve­ment in edu­ca­tion dates to ear­ly in his career, when he man­aged a middle/high school stu­dent vol­un­teer and ser­vice learn­ing pro­gram, work­ing with 22 schools and over 75 non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, and served as a com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­er for an adult lit­er­a­cy pro­gram. He is a grad­u­ate of Duke Uni­ver­si­ty and has both an MBA and a Master’s of Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford University.

Bri­an Mur­phy, Pres­i­dent of De Anza Col­lege, has led De Anza Col­lege since 2004 with a key focus on the prepa­ra­tion of stu­dents to be active, involved cit­i­zens com­mit­ted to trans­form­ing their com­mu­ni­ties. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Pres­i­dent Mur­phy served for 12 years as exec­u­tive direc­tor of the San Fran­cis­co Urban Insti­tute at San Fran­cis­co State Uni­ver­si­ty, and was chief con­sul­tant to the Cal­i­for­nia State Legislature’s reviews of the Mas­ter Plan for High­er Edu­ca­tion and the com­mu­ni­ty col­lege reform process in the late 1980s. He has taught polit­i­cal the­o­ry and Amer­i­can gov­ern­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Cruz, San­ta Clara Uni­ver­si­ty and San Fran­cis­co State University.

Charles Jen­nings, Direc­tor of the McGov­ern Insti­tute Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Pro­gram, MIT, became an edi­tor with the sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Nature fol­low­ing post­doc­tor­al stud­ies in devel­op­men­tal biol­o­gy at Har­vard and MIT. He was the found­ing edi­tor of Nature Neu­ro­science, wide­ly con­sid­ered a lead­ing jour­nal in its field. More recent­ly, he was the first exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Har­vard Stem Cell Insti­tute, and he con­tin­ues to serve as an advi­sor to the Con­necti­cut Stem Cell Research Program.

Chuck House, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Stan­ford Media X, leads Stan­ford University’s Indus­try Affil­i­ate research pro­gram on media and tech­nol­o­gy, and is a senior research schol­ar in the Human Sci­ences and Tech­nol­o­gy Advanced Research divi­sion at Stan­ford. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he was the direc­tor of Soci­etal Impact of Tech­nol­o­gy for Intel Cor­po­ra­tion, and the first Direc­tor of Intel’s Vir­tu­al Research Col­lab­o­ra­to­ry. He recent­ly co-authored The HP Phe­nom­e­non: Inno­va­tion and Busi­ness Trans­for­ma­tion (Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, Octo­ber 2009).

Col­in Mil­ner, Founder and CEO of the Inter­na­tion­al Coun­cil on Active Aging (ICAA), is one of the world’s vision­ar­ies on the health and well-being of the old­er adult. Mil­ner is a mem­ber of the Glob­al Agen­da Coun­cils ini­tia­tive run by the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, the active-aging spokesper­son for the Cana­di­an Asso­ci­a­tion of Fit­ness Pro­fes­sion­als, and the res­i­dent indus­try expert on aging for the Inter­na­tion­al Health, Rac­quet and Sports­club Asso­ci­a­tion. An award-win­ning writer, Mil­ner has authored more than 200 arti­cles on aging-relat­ed issues.

Eliz­a­beth Edger­ly, Nation­al Spokesper­son for Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion “Main­tain Your Brain”, is the Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer for the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion and nation­al spokesper­son for the Association’s Main­tain Your Brain pro­gram. She over­sees the many pro­grams of the Asso­ci­a­tion for patients, fam­i­lies and health care pro­fes­sion­als. In addi­tion, she staffs the Med­ical Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Coun­cil of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion – North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She received her Ph.D. in clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy at the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York and spe­cial­ized in geropsy­chol­o­gy and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy. Dr. Edger­ly joined the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion after com­plet­ing a fel­low­ship in clin­i­cal geropsy­chol­o­gy at the Palo Alto VA Hospital.

Glo­ria Cavanaugh, For­mer Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, retired in 2006 as Pres­i­dent and CEO after lead­ing the orga­ni­za­tion for 31 years and trans­form­ing it from being a region­al asso­ci­a­tion to a nation­al one with over 6,000 mem­bers. Ms. Cavanaugh is a found­ing mem­ber and for­mer Board Chair of the Nation­al Alliance for Care­giv­ing, and served as a Judge for the AARP Best Employ­ers for Work­ers Over 50 Pro­gram. In addi­tion to man­ag­ing her San Fran­cis­co-based con­sult­ing prac­tice, Cavanaugh cur­rent­ly serves on the boards of sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions and coalitions.

Ken­neth Kosik, Co-Direc­tor of UC-San­ta Bar­bara Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute, holds an M.D. degree from the Med­ical Col­lege of Penn­syl­va­nia. From 1980 until 2005 he held var­i­ous appoint­ments at the Har­vard Med­ical School where he became Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science. In the fall of 2004 he assumed the co-direc­tor­ship of the Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute and the Har­ri­man Chair at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San­ta Bar­bara. He has received mul­ti­ple awards, includ­ing a Whitak­er Health Sci­ences Award from Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, 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.

Mar­garet Mor­ris, Senior Researcher at Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group, stud­ies the ways that emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies can enhance men­tal and phys­i­cal well­be­ing. She con­ducts ethno­graph­ic research to iden­ti­fy needs and works with engi­neers to devel­op and eval­u­ate explorato­ry pro­to­types. Pri­or to join­ing Intel in 2002, she stud­ied tech­nol­o­gy adop­tion in Sapient’s Expe­ri­ence Mod­el­ling group. Margie com­plet­ed her Ph.D. in Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gy with a minor in Behav­iour­al Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of New Mex­i­co, her clin­i­cal intern­ship at the San Fran­cis­co VA Med­ical Cen­tre, and her post­doc­tor­al fel­low­ship at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. She has a B.A. in Eng­lish from Haver­ford College.

Nigel Smith, AARP Strat­e­gy and Plan­ning Direc­tor, is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing decen­tral­ized inno­va­tion mod­els for AARP and for con­sult­ing with busi­ness units in the exe­cu­tion of inno­va­tion process­es. Pri­or to AARP, Nigel was the Direc­tor or Prod­uct Inno­va­tion for Visa USA. Oth­er pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ences have been with McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny, Gold­man Sachs Group, and KPMG. Nigel holds a Mas­ters in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion degree from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty and a Bach­e­lors in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion degree from Howard University.

Peter A. Georges­cu is Chair­man Emer­i­tus of Young & Rubi­cam Inc., where he pre­vi­ous­ly served as Chair­man and CEO. Mr. Georges­cu is cur­rent­ly Vice Chair­man of New York Pres­by­ter­ian Hos­pi­tal and a mem­ber of the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions, and serves as a board mem­ber of sev­er­al pub­licly reg­is­tered com­pa­nies. In 2006 Mr. Georges­cu pub­lished his first book “The Source of Suc­cess” — assert­ing that per­son­al val­ues and cre­ativ­i­ty are the lead­ing dri­vers of busi­ness suc­cess in the 21st Cen­tu­ry. Mr. Georgescu’s belief in the pow­er of edu­ca­tion has fueled his involve­ment as a mem­ber of A Bet­ter Chance’s and Poly­tech­nic University’s Boards of Direc­tors. Mr. Georges­cu immi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States from Roma­nia in 1954, and is the recip­i­ent of the Ellis Island Medal of Hon­or. He was edu­cat­ed at Exeter Acad­e­my, received his B.A. with cum laude hon­ors from Prince­ton and an MBA from Stan­ford Busi­ness School.

Peter Sims is an author and thought-leader focused on cre­ative think­ing, inno­va­tion, and lead­er­ship. His next book, “Lit­tle Bets” (forth­com­ing from Simon & Schus­ter: Free Press, 2011) is about doing things to dis­cov­er what to do, draw­ing upon the inner-work­ings of var­i­ous cre­ative think­ing meth­ods to under­stand how new ideas evolve. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he was coau­thor with Bill George of “True North,” the Wall Street Jour­nal and Busi­ness­Week best-sell­ing book. His work has appeared in Har­vard Busi­ness Review, For­tune, and USA Today and he has spo­ken at and advised mul­ti­ple lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Peter worked as a ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist in the U.S. and Europe with Sum­mit Partners.

Rod Fal­con, Direc­tor of Health Hori­zons Pro­gram at the Insti­tute For The Future, directs research across a range of health and health care issues with an empha­sis on the glob­al health econ­o­my: evolv­ing con­sumer health mar­kets, do-it-your­self health care, the shift­ing of care out­side clin­i­cal set­tings, and the grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple turn­ing to tech­nol­o­gy to become bet­ter-than-well. Rod has a B.A. in Amer­i­can his­to­ry and eth­nic stud­ies and an M.P.P. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. Out­side work, Rod keeps busy learn­ing the myr­i­ad sto­ries of his own large extend­ed family.

Stephen Mack­nik, Lab Direc­tor at Bar­row Neu­ro­log­i­cal Insti­tute, has seen his research and sci­en­tif­ic out­reach activ­i­ties fea­tured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,The Chica­go Tri­bune, The Boston Globe, NPR, and Der Spiegel, among hun­dreds of media sto­ries. He is board mem­ber of Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, where he has pub­lished sev­er­al fea­ture arti­cles and for which he pub­lished a free month­ly online col­umn on the neu­ro­science of illusions.

Susan Hoff­man, Direc­tor of OLLI @ Berke­ley, leads the Osh­er Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute with­in the Vice Provost’s Office for Teach­ing and Learn­ing at UC Berke­ley. For the past fif­teen years she has worked at UC and CSU cam­pus­es launch­ing new inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and inter­na­tion­al pro­grams. Before then, she served as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Cal­i­for­nia Con­fed­er­a­tion of the Arts, rep­re­sent­ing Cal­i­for­nia artists, art edu­ca­tors and arts orga­ni­za­tions in Sacra­men­to and Wash­ing­ton for a decade. Her cre­ative work includes being a writer and film­mak­er. Her fac­ul­ty appoint­ments have been in cre­ative writ­ing, the­atre and polit­i­cal philosophy.

Remem­ber: Win­ners of the 2010 Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion Awards will be announced on May 24th.