You’re invited to the forum
featuring Heather Berlin!
November 18, 2025 at MINT MUSEUM UPTOWN
The Human Brain and Its Future
The unconscious mind and brain is more powerful and active than we ever imagined, says Dr. Heather Berlin. Knowing that, how can we optimize ourselves for success, i.e. hack our own cognitive systems? Berlin studies the seemingly mysterious topics of creativity, consciousness, and willpower, helping us to better understand ourselves and others, including what they want and how to help them.
This fascinating talk unlocks the secrets of attention, perception, and human wellbeing, and shows how these human traits are key to the future digital economy. Businesses with a clear view of how they work will have an edge on competitors, and leaders who know how to boost creativity in their employees will see massive success. We can all make better decisions and get the most out of our brains, Berlin says—but we need to understand them first.
About Heather Berlin
Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and associate clinical professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She explores the neural basis of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric and neurological conditions with the goal of developing novel treatments. She is also interested in the brain basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity.
Berlin is a committee member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a passionate science communicator. She hosts the new Nova series “Your Brain”, and has hosted series on PBS and Discovery Channel. She makes regular appearances on StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and has appeared on the BBC, History Channel, Netflix, and National Geographic. She co-wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed off-Broadway show, Off the Top, about the neuroscience of improvisation, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival show, Impulse Control.
Heather received her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, Magdalen College, and Master of Public Health from Harvard University, and trained in clinical neuropsychology at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Department of Neurological Surgery. She was a visiting scholar at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, and a Visiting Professor at Vassar College, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology/University of Zurich, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Connect. Consider. Ignite. The program runs from 6:30PM to 8:00 PM including time for conversation, connections, and Q&A.
The Forum has a three-part structure:
• First third: Participants connect and build relationships in small break-out groups prompted by a question;
• Middle third: Participants consider a presentation that ends with the speaker posing a community-facing question;
• Final third: Participants discuss the question, igniting new ideas and interactions.
THE HUMANITIES | Languages | Literature | History | Philosophy | Religion | And More!
Participate in the important questions of our time. The Forum is a conversation and speaker series that brings people together to explore challenges and opportunities that affect human flourishing through the lens of the humanities and civic imagination.
