By Eileen Conrad

Psychologist Michael Gazzaniga, a top scholar who is widely regarded as the founder of the cognitive neuroscience field, will direct a new interdisciplinary research center for the study of the mind at UC Santa Barbara.

The SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind has been funded with a $3.5-million contribution from SAGE Publications. SAGE made the gift to commemorate its 40th anniversary as a leading international publisher for scholarly, educational, and professional markets. The new center will bring together UCSB scholars from a broad range of academic disciplines—from the arts and humanities, social sciences, the sciences, and engineering—to explore the nature of the human mind.

Earlier this month, the pioneering effort was launched with a special public event and panel discussion on the “Multidimensional Aspects of Mind: The Interdisciplinary Approach” in Corwin Pavilion. Gazzaniga moderated the discussion involving three distinguished interdisciplinary scholars: Mahzarin R. Banaji, professor of social ethics in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University; Patricia S. Churchland, a philosopher of the mind and of neuroscience from UC San Diego; and Marcus Raichle, a professor of radiology, neurology, neurobiology, and psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.

Gazzaniga, currently a professor of psychology and brain sciences at Dartmouth, directs that college’s Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. In January, he will join UCSB’s Psychology Department, where he began his academic career in 1967 as an assistant professor. He has been a distinguished visiting professor at UCSB for the past three years.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to return to the place where I started my career and to build the mind sciences into a wide-ranging program that is inclusive of the social sciences and the arts and humanities,” said Gazzaniga. “It is an opportunity to pull together those people on campus who are interested in interdisciplinary work, which is rare at other universities.”

The new center will expand the study of the mind beyond the traditional disciplines of biology, chemistry, psychology, medicine, and neuroscience. It will be one of the first facilities at a major university where researchers will collaborate across disciplines to explore human mental processes from various perspectives: analytical, cultural, historical, philosophical, mathematical, scientific, and social.

SAGE’s gift will also establish a distinguished visiting scholar program that will bring the foremost researchers to UCSB to study the brain and the mind, and participate in seminars and conferences. One possible topic for discussion, for example, might be pain, which could be looked at neuro-biologically, psychologically, culturally, or from a literary point of view, Gazzaniga explained.

“By examining every aspect of pain from different angles, you gain greater insight into what it is and really does to us as humans,” said Gazzaniga. “This approach can be applied to anything you can think of.”

Chancellor Henry T. Yang thanked SAGE Publications for its “vision and generosity in supporting this pioneering interdisciplinary research center.”

Said Alison Mudditt, executive vice president of the Higher Education Group at SAGE: “This is an exciting opportunity to take the study of the mind to a new level, to push the boundaries of the field.” She said SAGE established the center “to support basic research and further important fields of study.”

Sara Miller McCune is publisher and chairman of Sage Publications. At UCSB, she serves as a trustee of The UCSB Foundation, and has been a generous benefactor of the campus.