Kevin Mitchell

Kevin Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He studies the genetics of brain wiring and its relevance to variation in human faculties, psychiatric disease and perceptual conditions like synaesthesia. His current research focuses on the biology of agency and the nature of genetic and neural information. He is the author of “INNATE – How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are” (Princeton University Press, 2018), writes the Wiring the Brain blog and is on Twitter @WiringtheBrain. He is currently working on a new book, “AGENTS - How Life Evolved the Power to Choose”, for Princeton University Press.  

About Dorothy:

"Due to my own interest in neurodevelopmental disorders, I had been aware of Dorothy's work on speech and language disorders for many years. But I first met Dorothy in person sometime in the mid-2000s in connection with something else entirely. This was at an interesting event in London, where some researchers were trying to pick the brains of brain experts to tease out what relevance findings from neuroscience might have for the practice of education. Those of us assembled agreed that most of what had made its way into the education field amounted to "neurobollocks". Since then, it has been mostly in connection with Dorothy's tireless efforts to improve scientific practice that we have been in touch. Dorothy has done a tremendous service to science in general, with her writings and public communication - in the literature, on her blog, and on Twitter - as well as in representations to government, on issues of experimental and statistical methodology, and the underlying flaws and perverse incentives in the scientific enterprise. The field owes her a huge debt, not just for her own impressive body of work, but for wanting and working to make all of us do science better."