Reading and The Brain

May 16th, 2026 at 2:30PM
Past Event

This roundtable explores the power of words across brain development, medicine, and community, while highlighting the importance of critical thinking in the age of AI and screens.


“So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea.” ― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“The skill of reading with attention, with discernment, is as important today as ever, not merely because of the proliferation of mis-and disinformation, but also because of the continual integration of AI into our everyday lives as well as our research methods.” — Christopher Brown

This roundtable discussion will consider the power of words as evidenced by brain imaging; child development; storytelling in medical settings; reading in community, and, in this age of screens and AI, the ability to nurture critical thinking habits

All Helix Center events are free and open to the public, including this one!

Roundtables are streamed live our website and the recording remains available after the event events.

This is a past event that happened on May 16th, 2026 at 2:30PM.

Participants

Rita Charon

General Internist
Literary Scholar

Rita Charon is a general internist and literary scholar and one of the founders of the field of narrative medicine. She completed the MD at Harvard and the PhD in English at Columbia. She is the Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine, Professor of Medicine, and founding chair of the Department of Medical Humanities and... read more! »

Emily Finn

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College

View Papers / Presentations »

Emily Finn is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. Work in Dr. Finn’s lab is focused on how within- and across-individual variability in brain activity relates to variability to subjective experience, especially in naturalistic and narrative-like conditions. She completed her Ph.D. in neuroscience at Yale, and her... read more! »

Nadine Gaab

Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professor in Learning Differences, Harvard Graduate School of Education

View Papers / Presentations »

Nadine Gaab is the Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professor in Learning Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the director of the GaabLab. Her research focuses on typical/atypical learning trajectories from infancy to adolescence with an emphasis on language/reading development within a learning disabilities framework. Her work is at the intersection of cognitive... read more! »

Uri Hasson

Professor, Neuroscience & Psychology, Princeton University

Uri Hasson is a distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at Princeton University. He was raised in Jerusalem and earned his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the Hebrew University. Dr. Hasson obtained his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the Weizmann Institute in Israel and later served as a postdoctoral fellow at New York University before joining... read more! »

Susan Neuman

Professor of Teaching and Learning, New York University

Susan B. Neuman is a Professor of Teaching and Learning at New York University specializing in childhood education and early literacy development. Previously, she has served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education under George W. Bush. She has authored over 100 articles and 12 books.  Her research interests include early childhood... read more! »