Haleh Fotowat is a senior scientist at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, where she leads neuroscience work on a DARPA-funded program developing novel anesthetics. She trained as an electrical engineer in Tehran and Houston before getting her PhD in neuroscience at Baylor, with postdocs at McGill, Ottawa, and Harvard studying locust escape behavior, weakly electric fish, and zebrafish navigation. She is also a working abstract painter whose pieces have shown in Harvard art exhibitions.

https://www.halehfotowat.com

I realized "Sleepwalkers" is an essay I never posted on my Substack, but it was an assignment for a class. Here's the Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/micahzarin

00:00 — Intro 00:21 — Art & Spontaneity 16:06 — The Brain 17:40 — Electric Fish & Serotonin 29:00 — Anesthesia & Consciousness 39:05 — AI & Attention 55:04 — What Makes Art Human 01:03:53 — The Secretary Problem 01:09:51 — Advice