Patricia Smith Churchland, B.Ph.

Patricia Smith Churchland, B.Ph., is a professor emerita of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. Her research focuses on the interface between neuroscience and philosophy. She is author of the pioneering book, Neurophilosophy, and co-author with T. J. Sejnowski of The Computational Brain. Her current work focuses on morality and the social brain; Braintrust: What Neuroscience tells us about Morality. Touching a Nerve portrays how to get comfortable with this fact: I am what I am because my brain is as it is. She has been president of the American Philosophical Association and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and won a MacArthur Prize in 1991, the Rossi Prize for neuroscience in 2008, and the Prose Prize for science for the book, Braintrust.  She was chair of the philosophy department at the University of California San Diego from 2000-2007. Churchland received a Bachelor of Philosophy from Oxford University, a Master of Arts degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia.