Charan Ranganath, Ph.D. & Gloria Mark, Ph.D. - Why We Remember

A new understanding of memory is emerging from the latest scientific research. In "Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters," pioneering neuroscientist and psychologist Charan Ranganath, Ph.D. radically reframes the way we think about the everyday act of remembering. Combining accessible language with cutting-edge research, he reveals the surprising ways our brains record the past and how we use that information to understand who we are in the present, and to imagine and plan for the future.
As Prof. Ranganath shows, memory is a highly transformative force that shapes how we experience the world in often invisible and sometimes destructive ways. Knowing this can help us with daily remembering tasks, like finding our keys, and with the challenge of memory loss as we age. What’s more, when we work with the brain’s ability to learn and reinterpret past events, we can heal trauma, shed our biases, learn faster, and grow in self-awareness.
Ranganath is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California at Davis. For over 25 years, he has studied the mechanisms in the brain that allow us to remember past events, using brain imaging techniques, computational modeling, and studies of patients with memory disorders.
Prof. Ranganath will be in conversation with Gloria Mark, Ph.D. (FAN ’24), Chancellor’s Professor Emerita at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Prof. Mark has been a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research since 2012. Her recent book is "Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity," named by The Globe and Mail as the #1 Best Business and Management book of 2023, and chosen as the Season 20 selection of the Next Big Idea Book Club.