Hailing from Philadelphia, Stuart moved to California where he worked as a theater director before attending San Francisco State and later UC Berkeley where he earned a PhD in neurobiology. He went on to conduct research at Yale Medical School prior to joining Columbia University where he now serves as Chair of the Biological Sciences Department. His lab studies the vertebrate olfactory receptor neuron and mechanisms of signal transduction.

 

Dr. Firestein is author of Ignorance: How It Drives Science and Failure: Why Science Is So Successful. He defined ignorance not as a willful action to be wrong or uninformed, but rather an acknowledgement that we don't know everything and even the things we think we know are likely not as absolute as we think.

We were unable to film the event but here are a few pictures and live tweets. If you're in the New York City area, join us at our next open science meetup!