STEPHEN M. KOSSLYN is the Founding Dean of the Minerva schools at the Keck Graduate Institute. He was formerly chair of the Department of Psychology, Dean of Social Science, and the John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James at Harvard University.
He received a B.A. from UCLA and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, both in psychology. His original graduate training was in Cognitive Science, which focused on the intersection of cognitive psychology and Artificial Intelligence; faced with limitations in those approaches, he eventually turned to study the brain. Kosslyn's research has focused primarily on the nature of visual mental imagery, visual perception, and visual communication, and he has authored or coauthored 12 books and over 300 papers on these topics. Kosslyn has received the American Psychological Association's Boyd R. McCandless Young Scientist Award, the National Academy of Sciences Initiatives in Research Award, the Cattell Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the J-L. Signoret Prize (France), an honorary Doctorate from the University of Caen, an honorary Doctorate from the University of Paris Descartes, and election to Academia Rodinensis pro Remediatione (Switzerland), the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
