Agenda

8.15–9.15am: Cog­ni­tion & Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty: The New Health & Well­ness Frontier
In a world with aging pop­u­la­tions and grow­ing life­long men­tal demands, is it time to con­sid­er cog­ni­tion in its own right as a health out­come, and to incor­po­rate neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty research and tools into main­stream health & wellness?

• Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, SharpBrains
• Tom War­den, Asst. VP, All­state Research and Plan­ning Center
• David White­house, Chief Med­ical Offi­cer, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solutions
• William Reich­man, Pres­i­dent, Baycrest
• P Murali Doraiswamy, Bio­log­i­cal Psy­chi­a­try Divi­sion Head, Duke University

• Kei­th Wesnes, Prac­tice Leader, Unit­ed BioSource Corporation
• Adam Gaz­za­ley, Neu­ro­science Imag­ing Cen­ter Direc­tor, UCSF
• Michel Noir, CEO, SBT / HappyNeuron
• Lau­rence Hir­sh­berg, Direc­tor, Neu­roDe­vel­op­ment Center

• Steven Aldrich, CEO, Posit Science
• Shlo­mo Breznitz, Pres­i­dent, CogniFit
• Jer­ri Edwards, Assoc. Pro­fes­sor Uni­ver­si­ty of South Florida
• Peter Chris­tian­son, Pres­i­dent of Young Dri­vers of Canada

• Michael Merzenich, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor, UCSF
• Torkel Kling­berg, Pro­fes­sor Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science, Karolin­s­ka Institute
• Joshua Stein­er­man, Asst. Pro­fes­sor, Albert Ein­stein – Mon­te­fiore Med­ical Center
• Yaakov Stern, Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion Leader, Colum­bia University

• Kunal Sarkar, CEO, Lumos Labs
• Eliz­a­beth Zelin­s­ki, Pro­fes­sor at USC Davis School of Gerontology
• Dan Michel, CEO, Dakim
• Michael Cole, CEO, Viv­i­ty Labs
• Elkhonon Gold­berg, NYU/ SharpBrains

• Ken­neth Kosik, Co-Direc­tor, UC San­ta Bar­bara Neu­ro­science Research Institute
• Jonas Jen­di, CEO, Cogmed
• Hol­ly Jimi­son, Assoc. Pro­fes­sor, Ore­gon Health & Sci­ence University
• Jesse Wright, Direc­tor Depres­sion Cen­ter, Uni­ver­si­ty of Louisville

• Evian Gor­don, CEO, Brain Resource
• Misha Pavel, Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing Divi­sion Head, Ore­gon Health & Sci­ence University
• Albert “Skip” Riz­zo, Co-Direc­tor VR Psych Lab at USC

• Tim Chang, Part­ner, Nor­west Ven­ture Partners
• Lisa Schooner­man, Co-Founder, VibrantBrains
• Richard Levin­son, Pres­i­dent, Atten­tion Con­trol Systems
• Veroni­ka Litin­s­ki, Direc­tor, MaRS Ven­ture Group

• Mar­garet Mor­ris, Senior Researcher, Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group
• Muki Hansteen-Izo­ra, Senior Design Researcher and Strate­gist, Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group

• Charles Jen­nings, Direc­tor of the McGov­ern Insti­tute Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Pro­gram, MIT
• Stephen Mack­nik, Direc­tor of the Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Behav­ioral Neu­ro­phys­i­ol­o­gy, Bar­row Neu­ro­log­i­cal Institute

Mar­i­an C. Dia­mond, Ph.D., is Pro­fes­sor of Neu­ro­science and Anato­my at UC-Berke­ley

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO, Sharp­Brains

Thomas M. War­den is Assis­tant Vice Pres­i­dent and Leader of Allstate’s Research and Plan­ning Cen­ter (ARPC). He helps sets ARPC’s research agen­da and man­age its exe­cu­tion by 60-mem­ber ARPC staff, lead­ing the devel­op­ment of sig­nif­i­cant inno­va­tions that con­tribute to Allstate’s prof­itable growth. He is a Char­tered Finan­cial Ana­lyst and has an M.B.A. from Har­vard University.

David White­house, Chief Med­ical Offi­cer, OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solu­tions. Dr. White­house serves as OptumHealth Behav­ioral Solu­tions’ clin­i­cal lead as well as the com­pa­ny’s prod­uct strate­gist for medical/behavioral/pharmacy inte­gra­tion and future inno­va­tion. His dis­tin­guished career also includes posi­tions as assis­tant clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of psy­chi­a­try at both Dart­mouth Med­ical School and Yale Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, chief of psy­chi­a­try at St. Mary’s Hos­pi­tal in Con­necti­cut, and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of Charles Riv­er Hos­pi­tal in Mass­a­chu­setts. Dr. White­house holds mas­ter’s degrees from both Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty and Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, an M.B.A. from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, an M.D. from Dart­mouth Med­ical School, and a doc­tor­ate in the­ol­o­gy from Har­vard University.

William Reich­man, Pres­i­dent, Bay­crest. Dr. William E. Reich­man is Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Bay­crest, one of the world’s pre­mier aca­d­e­m­ic health sci­ences cen­tres focused on aging and brain func­tion. Dr. Reich­man, an inter­na­tion­al­ly-known expert in geri­atric men­tal health and demen­tia is also Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try on the Fac­ul­ty of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. He is a not­ed author­i­ty on the deliv­ery of men­tal health and demen­tia ser­vices in nurs­ing home set­tings. His pre­vi­ous aca­d­e­m­ic activ­i­ties have focused on the phar­ma­co­log­i­cal treat­ment of Alzheimer’s dis­ease and its asso­ci­at­ed apa­thy and neg­a­tive symp­toms. Dr. Reich­man is a for­mer Pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion for Geri­atric Psy­chi­a­try and the Geri­atric Men­tal Health Foundation.

P Murali Doraiswamy, Bio­log­i­cal Psy­chi­a­try Divi­sion Head, Duke Uni­ver­si­ty. Dr. Doraiswamy is a renowned expert on brain health, head of Duke University’s Bio­log­i­cal Psy­chi­a­try divi­sion and a Senior Fel­low at Duke’s Cen­ter for the Study of Aging. The author of more than two hun­dred sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles, Dr. Doraiswamy has served as an advis­er to the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion, the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion for Aging Research, the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Aging, and the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, as well as lead­ing Alzheimer’s med­ical jour­nals and advo­ca­cy groups.

Steven Aldrich, CEO, Posit Sci­ence. Steven Aldrich is Pres­i­dent and CEO of Posit Sci­ence, join­ing the com­pa­ny from Intu­it where he cre­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant growth over 13 years in many roles. Most recent­ly he was VP of Strat­e­gy and Inno­va­tion of the small busi­ness divi­sion where he accel­er­at­ed growth by solv­ing impor­tant cus­tomer prob­lems through part­ner­ships and acqui­si­tions. He guid­ed the Quick­Books Indus­try Solu­tions and Quick­Books Point of Sale teams to sev­er­al suc­ces­sive years of sig­nif­i­cant employ­ee engage­ment increas­es, cus­tomer expe­ri­ence improve­ments, and rev­enue growth. Steven was Pres­i­dent of Quick­en Insur­ance, a busi­ness he co-found­ed and sold to Intu­it. He has worked in the invest­ment bank­ing divi­sion of Alex. Brown & Sons and for McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny, com­plet­ed his MBA at the Stan­ford Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness, and he holds an AB in Physics from the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na. Steven is an avid sup­port­er of the arts, and Pres­i­dent of the Board of the Bay Area Glass Institute.

Shlo­mo Breznitz, Pres­i­dent, Cog­niFit. Renowned cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gist, Pro­fes­sor Shlo­mo Breznitz has been engaged as vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor by numer­ous lead­ing insti­tu­tions includ­ing Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley, Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics, and the US Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices’ Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health. Author of sev­en books and many sci­en­tif­ic arti­cles, Pro­fes­sor Breznitz is found­ing direc­tor of the Cen­ter for the Study of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Stress at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Haifa, where he also served as Lady Davis Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chol­o­gy, Rec­tor, and Uni­ver­si­ty Pres­i­dent. His acclaimed Dri­ve­Fit™ train­ing pro­gram, which was the first Cog­niFit com­mer­cial prod­uct, received the UK Prince Michael Road Safe­ty Award.

Jer­ri Edwards, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the School of Aging Stud­ies Uni­ver­si­ty of South Flori­da. Dr. Edwards’ research is aimed toward dis­cov­er­ing how cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties can be main­tained and even enhanced with advanc­ing age. Ulti­mate­ly, the goals of Dr. Edwards’ research are to extend the mobil­i­ty and inde­pen­dence of old­er adults there­by improv­ing their qual­i­ty of life. She is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in how cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions may help old­er adults to avoid or at least delay func­tion­al dif­fi­cul­ties and there­by main­tain inde­pen­dence. Much of her work has focused upon the func­tion­al abil­i­ty of dri­ving includ­ing assess­ing dri­ving fit­ness among old­er adults and reme­di­a­tion of cog­ni­tive decline that results in dri­ving difficulties.

Peter Chris­tian­son, Pres­i­dent of Young Dri­vers of Cana­da. Peter joined Young Dri­vers as a YD fran­chise own­er in Hamil­ton in 1975, becom­ing the Direc­tor of Cen­tre Oper­a­tions in 1979 and YD Pres­i­dent in 1984. Young Dri­vers of Cana­da today is Canada’s largest dri­ver train­ing orga­ni­za­tion, hav­ing grown to over 140 class­rooms nation­al­ly and taught over one mil­lion novice dri­vers. Peter has man­aged YD cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment for the past 30 years and in 2003 he acquired the Cana­di­an rights for ‘Cog­niFit’ dri­ving pro­grams that focus on improv­ing the cog­ni­tive skills required to dri­ve safely.

Kunal Sarkar, CEO, Lumos Labs. Kunal is a found­ing mem­ber of Lumos Labs and leads the oper­a­tions and mar­ket­ing team. Pre­vi­ous­ly he was a Vice Pres­i­dent at pri­vate equi­ty fund McCown De Leeuw and Co.(MDC). At MDC Kunal was inte­gral­ly involved in the strat­e­gy, oper­a­tions and the finan­cial recap­i­tal­iza­tion of a num­ber of port­fo­lio com­pa­nies includ­ing serv­ing on the board of On Stage Enter­tain­ment and USBuild, and the IPO of StoneMor (STON). Pri­or to MDC, he worked in the Strate­gic Plan­ning and Devel­op­ment group at the Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny. Kunal grad­u­at­ed magna cum laude from Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty with a B.A. in Eco­nom­ics with a minor in Finance.

Eliz­a­beth Zelin­s­ki, Pro­fes­sor at USC Davis School of Geron­tol­ogy. Eliz­a­beth Zelin­s­ki, Ph.D., is a Pro­fes­sor of Geron­tol­ogy and Psy­chol­o­gy at the Leonard Davis School of Geron­tol­ogy. Dr. Zelin­s­ki has joint appoint­ments in the Psy­chol­o­gy Depart­ment, Neu­ro­sciences and the Study of Women and Men in Soci­ety (SWMS) Pro­grams. Dr. Zelin­s­ki grad­u­at­ed sum­ma cum laude from Pace Uni­ver­si­ty and received her grad­u­ate degrees in psy­chol­o­gy, with a spe­cial­iza­tion in aging, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. Dr. Zelin­s­ki is the prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor of the Long Beach Lon­gi­tu­di­nal Study.

Dan Michel, CEO, Dakim. Dan spent more than 30 years help­ing some of America’s most suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies mar­ket and adver­tise their brands. Over the last twen­ty years, he was Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer of BBDO Worldwide/Los Ange­les, Pres­i­dent of Mar­ket­ing of Colum­bia Pic­tures, and Pres­i­dent and Co-Cre­ative Direc­tor of his own cre­ative adver­tis­ing agency, Michel/Russo, Inc. Dan’s father was diag­nosed with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease in 1993. Based upon learn­ing about the dis­ease, and hav­ing gained first­hand expe­ri­ence par­tic­i­pat­ing in activ­i­ties with his father, he rec­og­nized the ther­a­peu­tic and emo­tion­al val­ue of cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties, and the press­ing need for more effec­tive means of pro­vid­ing this line of ther­a­py for suf­fer­ers of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and relat­ed demen­tia. Dan earned a B.A. from Clare­mont Men’s Col­lege (now Clare­mont McKen­na Col­lege) and an M.S. from North­west­ern University.

Elkhonon Gold­berg, Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­sor, Sharp­Brains. 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: Frontal Lobes and The Civ­i­lized Mind, The Wis­dom Para­dox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Old­er, and recent­ly co-authored The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness.

Michael Cole, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Viv­i­ty Labs. Mr. Cole is an expe­ri­enced exec­u­tive with a strong back­ground in strate­gic busi­ness devel­op­ment. He is the founder and CEO of Viv­i­ty Labs, the devel­op­er of brain fit­ness des­ti­na­tion Fitbrains.com, fea­tur­ing a large col­lec­tion of top-qual­i­ty casu­al brain games, progress track­ing, awards and com­mu­ni­ty fea­tures. Mr. Cole has more than 12 years of expe­ri­ence launch­ing inno­v­a­tive con­sumer com­pa­nies in the US, Europe and Japan. Mr. Cole received his MBA from EM Lyon in France and his BA from SFU in Van­cou­ver, Canada.

Evian Gor­don, CEO, Brain Resource. Dr Evian Gor­don, PhD, MBBCh, is the Chair­man and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Brain Resource. Dr Gor­don has over 20 years of expe­ri­ence in human brain research. He was the found­ing direc­tor of the Brain Dynam­ics Cen­tre at West­mead Hos­pi­tal and a senior lec­tur­er in the Depart­ment of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney. He edit­ed the first book on “Inte­gra­tive Neu­ro­science” and has more than 160 publications.

Misha Pavel, Ph.D., Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing Divi­sion Head, Ore­gon Health & Sci­ence Uni­ver­si­ty. Dr. Pavel was born in the for­mer Czecho­slo­va­kia and received his Ph.D. in Exper­i­men­tal Psy­chol­o­gy from New York Uni­ver­si­ty and his M.S. in Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. He joined OGI in 1993. Dur­ing a leave of absence, Dr. Pavel was a Tech­nol­o­gy Leader at AT&T Lab­o­ra­to­ries in Men­lo Park, Cal­i­for­nia, where he was devel­op­ing net­worked, wire­less and mobile appli­ca­tions for infor­ma­tion access and con­text-aware inter­ac­tions. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Dr. Pavel was a mem­ber of the Tech­ni­cal Staff at Bell Lab­o­ra­to­ries. Dr. Pavel is the author of more than 80 tech­ni­cal and sci­en­tif­ic papers.

Albert “Skip” Riz­zo, Co-Direc­tor VR Psych Lab at USC’s School of Geron­tol­ogy. Dr. Riz­zo is a Research Sci­en­tist at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute for Cre­ative Tech­nolo­gies and has a fac­ul­ty appoint­ment with the USC School of Geron­tol­ogy. Dr. Riz­zo con­ducts research on the design, devel­op­ment and eval­u­a­tion of Vir­tu­al Real­i­ty sys­tems tar­get­ing the areas of clin­i­cal assess­ment, treat­ment and reha­bil­i­ta­tion. His cog­ni­tive work has addressed the use of VR appli­ca­tions to test and train atten­tion, mem­o­ry, visu­ospa­tial abil­i­ties and exec­u­tive func­tion. He received his Ph.D. in Clin­i­cal Psy­chol­o­gy from the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York at Binghamton.

Muki Hansteen-Izo­ra, Senior Design Researcher and Strate­gist with Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group. Muki is also the Intel lead and co-PI for the Tech­nol­o­gy Research for Inde­pen­dent Liv­ing (TRIL) Cen­tre’s Cog­ni­tive Func­tion research strand, which is inves­ti­gat­ing how inter­ac­tive media and gam­ing tech­nolo­gies can sup­port cog­ni­tion in old­er pop­u­la­tions. Pri­or to join­ing Intel, Muki served as a lead researcher at Philips Research Labs. He holds a degree in Cul­tur­al Anthro­pol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San­ta Cruz, and com­plet­ed his grad­u­ate train­ing in Learn­ing, Design, and Tech­nol­o­gy at Stan­ford University.

Mar­garet Mor­ris, Senior Researcher in Intel’s Dig­i­tal Health Group. Mar­garet 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.

Kei­th Wesnes, Prac­tice Leader, Unit­ed BioSource Cor­po­ra­tion

Adam Gaz­za­ley, Direc­tor of the Neu­ro­science Imag­ing Cen­ter at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Fran­cis­co. Dr. Gaz­za­ley is a fac­ul­ty mem­ber in the Neu­rol­o­gy, Phys­i­ol­o­gy and Psy­chi­a­try depart­ments, and prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor of a cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science lab­o­ra­to­ry that con­ducts research on the neur­al mech­a­nisms of atten­tion and mem­o­ry. A major focus of his research has been to expand our under­stand­ing of the alter­ations in the aging brain that lead to cog­ni­tive decline. His most recent stud­ies explore how we can pre­serve and improve atten­tion and mem­o­ry as we get old­er. He has received many awards and hon­ors for his research, includ­ing the 1997 Cor­ti­cal Schol­ar Award, Pfizer/AFAR Inno­va­tions in Aging Award and the Elli­son Foun­da­tion New Schol­ar Award in Aging.

Michel Noir, CEO, Sci­en­tif­ic Brain Training/ Hap­pyNeu­ron. Dr. Noir received his Ph.D. in Edu­ca­tion­al Sci­ence and post grad­u­ate diplo­ma in Cog­ni­tive Psy­chol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lyon, France. He received his Grad­u­ate Diplo­ma, Advanced Grad­u­ate Diplo­ma, and Mas­ter’s in Pub­lic Law from Paris Law Fac­ul­ty. He also holds an Advanced Grad­u­ate Diplo­ma in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence.. Mr. Noir has authored over 15 books on a vari­ety of edu­ca­tion­al and brain train­ing top­ics and games.

Dr. Lau­rence Hir­sh­berg directs the Neu­roDe­vel­op­ment Cen­ter and serves on the fac­ul­ty of the Depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try and Human Behav­ior of the Brown Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical School as Clin­i­cal Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor. The Neu­roDe­vel­op­ment Cen­ter is one of the 20 research sites world­wide par­tic­i­pat­ing in the largest study of neu­ro­phys­i­o­log­i­cal mark­ers for depres­sion. Dr. Hir­sh­berg is a licensed clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and cer­ti­fied in EEG biofeed­back by the Biofeed­back Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Insti­tute of Amer­i­ca, and recent­ly served as Guest Edi­tor and con­trib­u­tor to a spe­cial issue of Child and Ado­les­cent Psy­chi­atric Clin­ics of North Amer­i­ca devot­ed to emerg­ing inter­ven­tions in applied neu­ro­science, includ­ing neu­ro­feed­back and oth­er brain based interventions.

Michael Merzenich, Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor, UCSF. For more than three decades, Dr. Merzenich has been a lead­ing pio­neer in brain plas­tic­i­ty research. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invent­ed the cochlear implant, now dis­trib­uted by Advanced Bion­ics. In 1996, Dr. Merzenich was the found­ing CEO of Sci­en­tif­ic Learn­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (Nas­daq: SCIL), and in 2004 became co-founder and Chief Sci­en­tif­ic Offi­cer of Posit Sci­ence. Dr. Merzenich has pub­lished more than 200 arti­cles, received numer­ous awards and prizes, and been grant­ed more than 50 patents for his work. His work was fea­tured on the PBS spe­cials “The Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram” and “Brain Fit­ness 2: Sight and Sound.” Dr. Merzenich earned his BS degree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Port­land and his PhD at Johns Hop­kins. He retired from his long career as Fran­cis A. Sooy Pro­fes­sor and Co-Direc­tor of the Keck Cen­ter for Inte­gra­tive Neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at San Fran­cis­co in 2007. He was elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences in 1999 and will be inau­gu­rat­ed into the Insti­tute of Med­i­cine this year.

Torkel Kling­berg, Pro­fes­sor Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science, Karolin­s­ka Insti­tute. Dr. Kling­berg is a pro­fes­sor of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science at the Stock­holm Brain Insti­tute, which is part of Sweden’s Karolin­s­ka Institute.In 2001, Kling­berg found­ed Cogmed to devel­op and pro­duce work­ing mem­o­ry train­ing pro­grams based on his break­through research demon­strat­ing that the work­ing mem­o­ry can be improved through train­ing. Kling­berg has gained recog­ni­tion in the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty and the inter­na­tion­al media. He has received dis­tinc­tions from the Inter­na­tion­al Neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal Asso­ci­a­tion and has been named “Future Research Leader” by the Swedish Foun­da­tion for Strate­gic Research. In 2006, he was award­ed the Philip’s Nordic Prize for out­stand­ing research in the field of Neu­ropsy­chi­a­try. Kling­berg also holds a research posi­tion at the Roy­al Swedish Acad­e­my of Sciences.

Joshua Stein­er­man, Asst. Pro­fes­sor, Albert Ein­stein Col­lege of Med­i­cine – Mon­te­fiore Med­ical Cen­ter. Edu­cat­ed and trained at Har­vard, Yale, Colum­bia, and the State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York, Dr. Stein­er­man is a behav­ioral neu­rol­o­gist and neu­ropsy­chi­a­trist who com­bines patient care with clin­i­cal research in brain aging and cog­ni­tion. Dr. Stein­er­man co-directs the Ein­stein-Mon­te­fiore Cen­ter for Healthy Brain Aging and is the sci­en­tif­ic founder of ProG­evi­ty Neuroscience.

Yaakov Stern, Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion Leader, Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty. Dr. Stern directs the Cog­ni­tive Neu­ro­science Divi­sion of the Sergievsky Cen­ter and is Direc­tor of Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy for the Mem­o­ry Dis­or­ders Clin­ic at the New York State Psy­chi­atric Insti­tute. He also directs the post-doc­tor­al train­ing pro­gram Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy and Cog­ni­tion in Aging, and is a Pro­fes­sor of Clin­i­cal Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy in the Depart­ments of Neu­rol­o­gy, Psy­chi­a­try, and Psy­chol­o­gy, as well as the in Sergievsky Cen­ter and the Taub Insti­tute for the Research on Alzheimer’s Dis­ease and the Aging Brain, at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege of Physi­cians and Surgeons.

Ken­neth Kosik, Co-Direc­tor, UC San­ta Bar­bara Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute. Dr. Kosik received his M.D. degree in 1976 from the Med­ical Col­lege of Penn­syl­va­nia and com­plet­ed a neu­rol­o­gy res­i­den­cy from Tufts New Eng­land Med­ical Cen­ter where he served as chief res­i­dent in 1979. From 1980 until 2005 he held var­i­ous appoint­ments at the Har­vard Med­ical School where he became Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy and Neu­ro­science in 1996. In the fall of 2004 he assumed the co-direc­tor­ship of the Neu­ro­science Research Insti­tute and the Har­ri­man Chair in the Depart­ment of Mol­e­c­u­lar, Cel­lu­lar and Devel­op­men­tal Biol­o­gy 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.

Jonas Jen­di, CEO, Cogmed. Jonas Jen­di joined Cogmed in 2001 as its chief exec­u­tive offi­cer. In 2007, Jen­di opened Cogmed’s North Amer­i­can head­quar­ters in Naperville, IL, where he is now based. Pri­or to Cogmed, Jen­di pro­vid­ed strate­gic con­sult­ing for the Boston Con­sult­ing Group in Stock­holm and Paris, and held man­age­ment and con­sult­ing roles for var­i­ous tech­nol­o­gy start-ups. He holds a MS from the Stock­holm School of Economics.

Hol­ly Jimi­son, Assoc. Pro­fes­sor, Ore­gon Health & Sci­ence Uni­ver­si­ty. Dr. Jimi­son is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Med­ical Infor­mat­ics and Clin­i­cal Epi­demi­ol­o­gy at Ore­gon Health & Sci­ence Uni­ver­si­ty. She teach­es cours­es in Con­sumer Health Infor­mat­ics and Ethics, Legal, and Social Issues in Med­ical Infor­mat­ics. Hol­ly received her doc­tor­ate in Med­ical Infor­ma­tion Sci­ences from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, with dis­ser­ta­tion work on using com­put­er deci­sion mod­els to tai­lor patient edu­ca­tion mate­ri­als. Her research inter­ests include tech­nol­o­gy for suc­cess­ful aging, home health mon­i­tor­ing, user mod­els for adap­tive inter­faces for con­sumer health infor­ma­tion, and cog­ni­tive mon­i­tor­ing through com­put­er interactions.

Jesse Wright, Direc­tor Depres­sion Cen­ter, Uni­ver­si­ty of Louisville. Jesse H. Wright, M.D., Ph.D., is a pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try and Behav­ioral Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Louisville, where he also serves as asso­ciate chair­man for Aca­d­e­m­ic Affairs and direc­tor of the Depres­sion Cen­ter. Addi­tion­al­ly, he is the med­ical direc­tor of the Nor­ton Psy­chi­atric Cen­ter and a pol­i­cy advi­sor for the Depres­sion and Bipo­lar Sup­port Alliance (DBSA). Dr. Wright is the prin­ci­pal author of “Good Days Ahead: The Inter­ac­tive Pro­gram for Depres­sion and Anx­i­ety,” the first mul­ti­me­dia com­put­er pro­gram for treat­ment of depres­sion. Dr. Wright was the found­ing pres­i­dent of the Acad­e­my of Cog­ni­tive Ther­a­py and is a past pres­i­dent of the Ken­tucky Psy­chi­atric Asso­ci­a­tion. He also is a fel­low of the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Psy­chi­a­trists. He grad­u­at­ed from Jef­fer­son Med­ical Col­lege in Philadel­phia and com­plet­ed his res­i­den­cy train­ing in psy­chi­a­try at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan.

Tim Chang, Part­ner, Nor­west Ven­ture Part­ners. Tim brings a com­bi­na­tion of oper­a­tional, tech­ni­cal and inter­na­tion­al busi­ness expe­ri­ence to Nor­west Ven­ture Part­ners. Tim focus­es on invest­ments in mobile, gam­ing, dig­i­tal media, and also leads NVP’s invest­ment prac­tice in Chi­na and Asia-Pacif­ic. Tim led NVP’s invest­ments in and joined the boards of direc­tors of ngmo­co, Lumos Labs, Brite Semi­con­duc­tor and 3jam. Tim spent more than five years work­ing in Japan. He was a prod­uct man­ag­er at Gate­way Inc and a devel­op­ment engi­neer for Gen­er­al Motors. Tim holds an MBA from Stan­ford Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness, and an MS in elec­tri­cal engineering/system engi­neer­ing as well as a BS in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan.

Lisa Schooner­man, Co-founder, vibrant­Brains. Lisa held a vari­ety of tech­ni­cal and edi­to­r­i­al posi­tions with the Thom­son Cor­po­ra­tion in the Legal Pub­lish­ing divi­sion (now Thom­son­Reuters), begin­ning in Rochester, NY and then com­ing to San Fran­cis­co to work for what was then Ban­croft Whit­ney. Lisa’s work for Thom­son includ­ed a 3‑year assign­ment in the UK, where she was Edi­to­r­i­al Direc­tor of the group pro­vid­ing con­tent for West­law UK, the first inter­na­tion­al appli­ca­tion of the West­law database.

Richard Levin­son, Pres­i­dent, Atten­tion Con­trol Sys­tems. In the ear­ly 1990s, as a robot­ics researcher at NASA-Ames Research Cen­ter in Moun­tain View, Cal­i­for­nia, Mr. Levin­son began study­ing the neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy of human plan­ning in order to increase auton­o­my for NASA robots. In 1995, he pro­posed a com­put­er mod­el of human frontal lobe func­tion in an arti­cle pub­lished in the Annals of the New York Acad­e­my of Sci­ences. That com­put­er mod­el of exec­u­tive func­tions led to the devel­op­ment of PEAT, a pow­er­ful cuing and sched­ul­ing treat­ment cur­rent­ly avail­able to peo­ple with a wide range of cog­ni­tive and atten­tion dis­or­ders. Levin­son has pub­li­ca­tions relat­ed to PEAT in both com­put­er sci­ence and neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy jour­nals, and has pio­neered an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach to cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion that has drawn wide­spread attention.

Veroni­ka Litin­s­ki, Direc­tor, MaRS Ven­ture Group. Veroni­ka Litin­s­ki coor­di­nates the MaRS ven­ture ser­vices pro­grams deliv­ered to entre­pre­neurs, investors and high-growth com­pa­nies. She also pro­vides advi­so­ry ser­vices to entre­pre­neurs and high growth com­pa­nies, with a spe­cial focus on life sci­ences mar­kets, spe­cial­iz­ing in cor­po­rate finance and busi­ness devel­op­ment. Veroni­ka start­ed her career as a research sci­en­tist at Lawrence Liv­er­more Lab in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia. Tran­si­tion­ing to the busi­ness world, Veroni­ka found­ed a med­ical jour­nal, earned her MBA (Finance) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of San Fran­cis­co, and worked in cor­po­rate finance with Union Bank and GATX Finan­cial Cor­po­ra­tion. Veroni­ka is a mem­ber of Finan­cial Women Asso­ci­a­tion (FWA) and Finan­cial Exec­u­tives Inter­na­tion­al (FEI).

Charles Jen­nings, Direc­tor of the new McGov­ern Insti­tute Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (MINT) Pro­gram, MIT. Fol­low­ing post­doc­tor­al stud­ies in devel­op­men­tal biol­o­gy at Har­vard and MIT, he became an edi­tor with the sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Nature. 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.

Stephen Mack­nik, Direc­tor of the Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Behav­ioral Neu­ro­phys­i­ol­o­gy, Bar­row Neu­ro­log­i­cal Insti­tute. Dr. Mack­nik’s research and sci­en­tif­ic out­reach activ­i­ties have been 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.