#192. A.I. and Artificial Neural Networks: Inspired By a Deeper Understanding of the Human Brain

#192. A.I. and Artificial Neural Networks: Inspired By a Deeper Understanding of the Human Brain

Gaurav Suri [https://www.suriradlab.com/people] is a computational neuroscientist and experimental psychologist at San Francisco State University, where he is the director of the Readiness, Activation, and Decision-Making Laboratory. He is also a visiting professor at Stanford’s Center for Affective Science. He is the coauthor of A Certain Ambiguity: A Mathematical Novel, which was published in 2007 and won the American Publishers Award. Gaurav is the coauthor and a protégé of Jay McClelland, a leader in the conceptualization of neural networks to explain cognitive phenomena, such as recognition of both written and spoken words. This interview will focus on their recently published book, The Emergent Mind: How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines. Recorded 7/8

#191. On Growing Up in Revolutionary Iran

Jacqueline Saper [https://www.jacquelinesaper.com/] is an award-winning writer, public speaker, commentator, and translator, with columns and essays in national and international publications and interviews in mainstream media in both English and Farsi. We’ll be talking about her memoir, published in 2019, From Miniskirt to Hijab: A Girl in Revolutionary Iran, which chronicles her life from childhood to early adulthood in Iran, which spans the last 16 years of the rule of the Shah, as well as the first ten years following the Islamic Revolution. The book ends, at age 26, with her emigration to the United States with her husband and two children. The memoir provides a highly personalized account of what it was like to grow up in Iran in tumultuous times, a multifaceted story informed by multiple ethnic identities. Recorded 6/23/26.

#190. The History of the Opioid Trade, Legal and Illegal

Benjamin Robert Siegel [https://www.benjaminrsiegel.com/] is a history professor at Boston University and former writer for Time Magazine. His writing has appeared in both mainstream media and academic journals, focusing on economic issues that affect everyday life, including food production and drug supplies. His first book, Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India, published in 2018, explores the struggle of newly independent India to overcome famine and malnutrition. His second book, Markets of Pain: Opium, Capitalism, and the Global History of Painkillers, published two months ago, tells the story of opium, its cultivation and trade, both legal and illegal, and its role in the building of empires and the fomenting of international conflicts. Siegel’s next book will be about the the price of protein, i.e., its political and environmental costs. This interview will focus primary on his most recent book, Markets of Pain. Recorded 5/26/26.

#189. One of Ancient Rome's Most Powerful Women

Jane Draycott [https://drjanedraycott.co.uk/] is a lecturer (professor) of Ancient History at the University of Glasgow and co-director of the University of Glasgow’s Games and Gaming Lab, focusing on Roman history and archaeology. In addition to interviews and writing book chapters and articles for academic and mainstream media, she is the author of several books, three on ancient medical practices in Ancient Rome, and two on prominent ancient women: Cleopatra’s Daughter: Egyptian Princess, Roman Prisoner, African Queen, published in 2023 and Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome, published in 2025, which is the subject of today’s interview. Recorded 5/21/26.

#188. A Memoir that Explores the Tensions Between Devotion to Parents and Building One's Own Life

Manil Suri [https://www.manilsuri.com/] is a distinguished university professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and is also the author of three internationally acclaimed novels set in his native India: The Death of Vishnu, The Age of Shiva, and The City of Devi, which have been translated into twenty-seven languages and have won multiple literary awards. As a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, he has written several widely read pieces on mathematics, India, and LGBTQ+ issues. In October of 2022, I interviewed Manil about his book, The Big Bang of Numbers: How to Build the Universe Using Only Math, which marshaled his talent for storytelling in the sharing of his love of mathematics. (Episode #9) Today’s interview is about his latest book, in which he ably tackles yet another genre, A Room in Bombay, a Memoir, a sensitive and poignant portrait of his relationship with his parents and how he navigated their emotional dependency on him and still have his own life. Recorded 5/19/26.