New Horizons Lecture

Shankar Vedantam is a social science correspondent and the host of the Hidden Brain podcast, regularly downloaded by millions of listeners each week. The focus of his reporting is on human behavior and the social sciences, and how research in those fields can get listeners to think about the world in unusual and interesting ways.

In this interactive conversation, Shankar Vedantam will provide insights on how the hidden brain affects diversity, change and artificial intelligence.

Hidden Brain is among the most popular podcasts in the world and it is regularly ranked among the top twenty podcasts in the U.S. and internationally. The Hidden Brain radio show is featured on 350 public radio stations across the U.S.

Before joining National Public Radio in 2011, Vedantam spent 10 years as a reporter at The Washington Post. From 2007 to 2009, he also wrote the Department of Human Behavior column for the Post.

Vedantam is the author of The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives. The book, published in 2010, describes how unconscious biases influence people. In March 2021, his new book, Useful Delusions: The Powerful Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain, will be published by W.W. Norton.

Vedantam has been recognized for his contributions to journalism, including receiving the Edward R. Murrow Award, which honors outstanding achievement in electronic journalism. From 2009 to 2010, Vedantam served as a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, and has served as a part-time lecturer at Harvard and Columbia University in New York. He has also served as a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC.