Saturday Banquet held at the Nittany Lion Inn from 6-9pm will feature Dr. Indre Viskontas as the keynote speaker
Combining a love of music with scientific curiosity, Dr. Indre Viskontas is a Professor of Sciences and Humanities at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is pioneering the application of neuroscience to musical training, and an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at the University of San Francisco. She completed her undergraduate degree in psychology and French literature at Trinity College in the University of Toronto, her Masters of Music degree in vocal performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and her Doctorate of Philosophy in cognitive neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dr. Viskontas has published more than 35 original papers and chapters related to the neural basis of memory and creativity, including several seminal articles in top scientific journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Neuroscience, Current Opinion in Neurology and Nature: Clinical Practice. Her scientific work has been featured in Oliver Sacks’ book Musicophilia, Nature: Science Careers and DiscoverMagazine. Her dissertation was recognized as the best of her class at UCLA and her ongoing collaborations include projects with internationally-acclaimed artist Deborah Aschheim, with whom she has created art pieces highlighting the interplay between memory, creativity and the brain, and a multi-media project exploring the interplay between musical ensembles and empathy, funded by a grant from the Germanacos Foundation.
Defying traditional career boundaries, Dr. Viskontas spends much of her time performing as an opera singer. She often works with living composers and has created roles in three contemporary operas. A regular soloist with several Bay Area chamber groups, she is the founder and director of Vocallective, a consortium of singers and instrumentalists dedicated to the art of vocal chamber music as well as Opera on Tap: San Francisco, a chapter of the nation-wide organization whose mission is to create a place for opera in popular culture.
A passionate communicator, Dr. Viskontas made her television debut as a co-host of Miracle Detectives, a six hour-long episode documentary series that aired on The Oprah Winfrey Network. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and several major radio stations across the US, including the popular NPR program City Arts & Lectures in the US and The Sunday Edition on the CBC in Canada. She was a featured host of the podcast Point of Inquiry, from 2012-2013, and currently co-hosts the popular science podcast Inquiring Minds, produced in partnership The Climate Desk, a collaboration with The Atlantic, Center for Investigative Reporting, The Guardian, Grist, Mother Jones, Slate, Huffington Post and Wired. She is a sought-after public speaker, an Editor of the journal Neurocase and a frequent contributor to MotherJones.com. Her 24-lecture course called Essential Scientific Concepts was released by The Great Courses as a series of videos on DVD and audio lectures on CD, as well as streaming online in 2014 and her second course, Brain Myths Exploded: Lessons from Neuroscience will be released in 2016.