Monday 2nd February - 07:00 PM GMT
LIVE Q&A: Meet the Speakers
Join our debate's speakers for a live audience Q&A
After the headline debate, join us for a live audience Q&A bringing the conversation directly to the speakers. From 7.00–7.20pm, Adam Frank, Lisa Feldman Barrett and Michael Levin will come together on Zoom, hosted by Güneş Taylor, to respond to your questions and challenges. This interactive session gives attendees the chance to probe the limits of materialism, explore alternative metaphysical frameworks, and press the panellists on what these ideas mean for the future of science, from consciousness and life to the foundations of physics.
To join this Zoom call today at 19:00GMT, please head to the 'Lounge' in our online venue. To access the Lounge, please click HERE.
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Lisa Feldman Barrett
Leading neuroscientist and psychologist, redefining how emotions are constructed by the brain. University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern and director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Lab. Author of How Emotions Are Made and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain.
Adam Frank
Astrophysicist, author, and broadcaster exploring the origins of stars, civilizations, and consciousness. Professor at the University of Rochester and co-founder of NPR’s 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. Leading voice in astrobiology and the search for technosignatures.
Michael Levin
Michael Levin is a pioneering biologist whose work is reshaping our understanding of life, intelligence, and the very fabric of biological form. As Professor of Biology and Director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, Levin investigates how cells communicate and cooperate through bioelectrical signals to build and repair complex bodies.
His research on regeneration, morphogenesis, and synthetic living systems, including the creation of programmable “biobots”, blurs the boundaries between biology, computation, and cognition. In exploring how intelligence might emerge from collective cellular decision-making, Levin invites us to reconsider what it means to be alive, to have a mind, and to act creatively in the world.
Levin’s early work on left-right asymmetry of embryonic bodies was chosen by the journal Nature as a “Milestone in Developmental Biology in the last century.
Güneş Taylor
Gunes Taylor is a training fellow at the Francis Crick Institute, the London-based biomedical research centre. Her research predominantly focuses on the the genetic formation of ovaries and testes. Gunes has debated the implications of genome editing in forums such as Fertility Fest, the Festival of Genomics, and Virtual Futures, and is fascinated by our cultural and ideological responses to our genetic makeup.
As a molecular biologist she uses many cutting-edge technologies to understand how reproductive systems are built. Güneş is a highly experienced public speaker, who has interviewed Richard Dawkins, Yuval Harari, Slavoj Zizek, Robert Plomin, Simon Baron-Cohen and Lord Robert Winston.