Dr. Anna Chambers at the Harvard Science Center

RSVP is required for this event.

Harvard Book Store, the Harvard University Division of Science, and the Harvard Library welcome Dr. Anna Chambers—neuroscientist and Instructor of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at Harvard Medical School, as well as a researcher in the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital in Boston—for a discussion of her new book, Circuit Breakers: How Neuroscientists Get Inside Your Head. The presentation will take place in Hall D of the Harvard Science Center, located at 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge.

Ticketing

RSVP for free to this event or choose the "Book-Included" ticket to reserve a copy of Circuit Breakers and pick it up at the event. Following the presentation will be a book signing.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

About Circuit Breakers

Neuroscientist Dr. Anna Chambers takes us inside a state-of-the-art brain research laboratory, showing us how scientists unpack the biological secrets that make headlines and save lives.

In recent decades, neuroscience has revealed fascinating details about how the brain works in health and disease. But how do we know what we know?

In Circuit Breakers, Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Anna Chambers pulls back the curtain to show us what happens in the modern brain research laboratory. Here, we learn how cutting-edge tools can manipulate memories, make neurons glow in the dark, and record signals at every level, from the whole brain to a single synapse.

Perfect for readers of David Eagleman’s Livewired and Robert Sapolsky’s Behave, Circuit Breakers weaves down-to-earth explanations of futuristic tools, like human brain implants and laser-controlled neurons, with candid interviews and stories from the author's own often-grueling journey as a researcher.

In the rapidly expanding field of neuroscience, unprecedented discoveries may be all in a day’s work. Through stories of the ‘science around the science’—all the daily problems a scientist must solve, like accessing a living brain encased in a skull, or figuring out how to coax unusual creatures like cuttlefish and bats into behaving naturally in a lab—Chambers invites us into spaces where few of us ever venture.

Throughout, Chambers tells the little-known stories of these discoveries with equal parts humor and wonder. Through sharing this fascinating—and sometimes downright strange—profession with the wider world, Circuit Breakers is deeply committed to inspiring young neuroscientists, improving scientific literacy, and dispelling the many myths about the brain, the ultimate “black box.”

Bio

Dr. Anna Chambers is a neuroscientist who conducts research on memory, sleep, and hearing. She is an Instructor of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery at Harvard Medical School and a researcher in the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital in Boston. She studied neuroscience as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, received a PhD from Harvard in 2015, and conducted postdoctoral fellowships in Germany and Norway. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and two sons.

Harvard Science Book Talks

The Harvard Science Book Talks series is a collaboration between the Harvard University Division of Science, the Harvard Library, and Harvard Book Store. The series features talks by the authors of recently published books on a variety of science-related topics and is open to both the Harvard community and to the general public. Learn more and watch recordings of past talks here.