The State of Hate - a three-part virtual series 

Part 1 - Hate and the Brain 

The State of Hate is a multi-part online series co-sponsored by the Friends of Semel Institute, the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital Board of Advisors, and the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate.

The series brings together UCLA experts to share new ways of understanding and mitigating hate.  The first installment in the series, The Brain and Hate will examine what we know about how hate takes rise in the human brain and what neuroscience can tell us about how hate develops in adolescents and adults.  

UCLA Professors Adriana Galván and Mario Mendez will join in conversation to examine the opportunities and challenges of studying the neuroscience of hate. They will also discuss some of the cognitive processes that advance hateful behavior and how we can counter them.

Opening remarks by Dr. David Myers, Distinguished Professor, Director of the Luskin Center for History and Policy and Director of the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate.  Dr. Myers also holds the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History.  

The UCLA Initiative to Study Hate is a three-year pilot project intended to foster cutting-edge research and high-level teaching to understand better and mitigate group-based hate.

SPEAKERS

Mario Mendez, MD, PhD.  is the Director of the Behavioral Neurology Program at UCLA.  His research has focused on the behavioral and cognitive aspects of dementia, especially frontotemporal dementia and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease variants such as posterior cortical atrophy. Dr. Mendez has authored or co-authored four books and about 430 publications (including chapters).  Specific research interests include the brain basis of morality, sociopathy, empathy, and, more recently, hate.  

Adriana Galván, PhD is a Professor of Psychology and Dean of Undergraduate Education at UCLA. She also holds the Wendell Jeffrey and Bernice Wenzel Term Chair in Behavioral Neuroscience and is director of the Developmental Neuroscience Lab at UCLA. Her expertise is in adolescent brain development and behavior, particularly in the domains of learning, motivation, and decision-making. The focus of her research is on characterizing the neural mechanisms underlying adolescent behavior with an eye towards informing policy (e.g. juvenile justice). She received her B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University and her PhD in Neuroscience from Cornell. 

David N. Myers, PhD is Distinguished Professor and holds the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History. He is the founding director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy and the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, as well as the Chair of the Dialogue Across Difference Committee at UCLA. He previously served as chair of the UCLA History Department (2010-2015) and as director of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies (1996-2000 and 2004-2010). He received his A.B. from Yale College in 1982 and undertook graduate studies at Tel-Aviv and Harvard Universities before completing his doctorate at Columbia in 1991. He has written extensively in the fields of modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history.