Professor V. S. Ramachandran Vilayanur

S Ramachandran is Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition and professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Programme at the University of California, San Diego.

He is also Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute. He originally trained as a doctor and obtained an M.D. from Stanley Medical College, where he was awarded gold medals in pathology and clinical medicine.

He also studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Ph.D. and was elected a senior Rouse-Ball Scholar.

He has received many honours and awards including a fellowship from All Souls College, Oxford.

He is also a fellow of the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla and a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Behavioural Sciences at Stanford.

Ramachandran has published over 120 papers in scientific journals (including three invited review articles in the Scientific American), is Editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Human Behaviour and author of the critically acclaimed book Phantoms in the Brain.

His work is featured frequently in the major newsmedia and Newsweek magazine recently named him a member of "the century club" - one of the hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century.

He was the BBC Reith Lecturer 2003. He is the author of (with Susan Blakeslee) 'Phantoms in the Brain'.

Last years Reith lectures are published as 'The Emerging Mind'.