Real Art Ways Hartford, CT
Dr. Brandon Ogbunu
Assistant Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University
Embrace of the Serpent— Evolution of the human mind
Program Description
Dr. Ogbunu will lead a talk on the evolution of the human mind, how environmental factors have molded our brains, and how our brains are constantly adapting to our changing world.
Presented At
Real Art Ways Hartford, CT
Film Synopsis
The story of the relationship between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his people, and two scientists who work together over the course of 40 years to search the Amazon for a sacred healing plant.
The film tells two stories, taking place in 1909 and 1940, both starring Karamakate (played as a young man by Nilbio Torres and as an older man by Antonio Bolivar) an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his tribe. He travels with two scientists, German Theodor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet) and American Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis), to look for the rare yakruna, a sacred plant. The film is loosely inspired by the diaries written by the two scientists during their field work in the Amazon. Embrace of the Serpent won the Art Cinema Award in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and it was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards.
About the Speaker
Dr. Brandon Ogbunu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University. His research takes place at the intersection of evolutionary biology, genetics, and epidemiology. He uses experimental evolution, mathematical modeling, and computational biology to better understand the underlying causes and consequences of disease, across scales: from the biophysics of proteins involved in drug resistance to the social determinants driving epidemics at the population level.
In doing so, he aims to develop theory that enriches our understanding of the evolutionary and ecological underpinnings of disease, while contributing to practical solutions for clinical medicine and public health. He completed his PhD at Yale University in 2010 and postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University and the Broad Institute. He has been the recipient of the UNCF-Merck, the Broad Institute Diversity Fellowship and the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.
He comes to Yale after two years on the faculty at Brown University. Brandon is also currently a visiting research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.