Michael S. Gazzaniga is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, the study of the neural basis of mind. In 1961, he graduated from Dartmouth College. In 1964, he received a Ph.D. in psychobiology from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked under the guidance of Roger Sperry, with primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research.

In his subsequent work Dr. Gazzaniga has made important advances in our understanding of functional lateralization in the brain and how the cerebral hemispheres communicate with one another. His publication career includes books for a general audience The Social Brain, Mind Matters, and Nature’s Mind.