Our guest for this episode, Professor Rebecca Saxe, is MIT’s Associate Dean of Science. Prof. Saxe is also the principal investigator for her own laboratory, the Saxe Lab, where she deploys powerful technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the relationship between human thought and brain activity. (She originally went into cognitive neuroscience because, as she puts it, there’s nothing cooler than the fact that “all the thoughts we ever have” arise out of the firing of neurons.). Prof. Saxe is also deeply committed to improving how research is conducted and published, both in her own field and in others to support a scientific method that will be more robust and will yield more reliably replicable results. One of the ways to achieve this more robust science, she explains, is to make a shift toward more openness, embracing transparency in every step of the scientific process and promoting generosity in the sharing of data. 

Relevant Resources:

MIT OpenCourseWare

The OCW Educator Portal

Prof. Saxe’s faculty page at Saxe Lab website

“How We Read Each Other’s Minds” (TED talk video) 

Nelson memo on open access to Federally funded research (PDF)

9.401 Tools for Robust Science on MIT OpenCourseWare

RES.9-005 fMRI Bootcamp on MIT OpenCourseWare

Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions

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Credits

Sarah Hansen, host and producer 

Brett Paci, producer  

Dave Lishansky, producer 

Show notes by Peter Chipman