Pioneering neuroscientist, Joy Hirsch, has focused her research on developing ways to image human brain activity during performance of complex behaviors.  Her ground-breaking studies of language, emotion, attention, and cognition are internationally known for advances in our understanding of how separate neural systems interact during these functions.  In addition, Hirsch and her students have developed methods to apply brain mapping to the medical benefit of patients with psychiatric conditions, chronic pain, and neurosurgical procedures.  She is currently studying cognitive processes during unconscious states, addiction, obesity and eating disorders, anxiety, and autism.

Hirsch is a sought-after public lecturer and teacher of fundamental principles that govern brain and behavior interactions, and has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous book chapters on topics of brain and mind.  She was awarded the prestigious Gamov Science Award in 2009, and is a curator of the current exhibit on The Brain: The Inside Story at the American Museum of Natural History.  Hirsch is a professor of Functional NeuroRadiology, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry at Columbia University.