Salons

Informal events based on the concept of 16^th C Italian and French Salons – a gathering to increase knowledge though conversation – hosted by topic experts. Come along to ask your burning questions, sharpen your knowledge, or simply enjoy lively discussion! SAS 2021 is delighted to offer 5 main salon types: Special Topic, Career Spotlight, Rejection & Resilience, Ask the Editor, and Ask Me Anything!

Clicking on each speaker’s name will take you to their personal websites.

Special Topic
Career Spotlight
Rejection & Resilience
Ask the Editor
Ask Me Anything!

– Special Topic –

Communicating Affective Science

Jim Coan

University of Virginia, USA

Jamil Zaki

Stanford University, USA

Date: Thursday, April 15th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm PDT (8:15pm – 9:15pm UTC)

Description: The affective science community has a responsibility to share its findings with the public. How do we do so in an engaging yet accurate way? Dr. Zaki is the author of a new book for general audiences, The War for Kindness, and Dr. Coan is creating a comic book on the science of human connection. They will discuss the challenges and benefits of communicating affective science with the public.

Moving Past Theoretical Deadlocks in Affective Science

Ralph Adolphs

California Institute of Technology, USA

Lisa Feldman Barrett

Northeastern University, USA

Date: Thursday, April 15th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm PDT (8:15pm – 9:15pm UTC)

Description: Dr. Barrett and Dr. Adolphs don’t always agree with each other’s theoretical perspectives. But through ongoing conversation, they have come to more fully appreciate the nuances and strengths of each other’s views, as well as the ways in which they do agree. Dr. Barrett says, “the conversations I’ve shared with Ralph have been some of the most rewarding of my career.” These renowned affective scientists will discuss how the field might move past theoretical deadlocks to create a more cumulative and integrated science.

Affect, Health, and Well-Being

Carien van Reekum

University of Reading, UK

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am BST (8:00am – 9:30am UTC)

Description: (How) does the study of affective responding in the lab inform our understanding of well-being? Let’s have a round-table discussion of past approaches and identify promising new directions in this field of research.

Affective and Cognitive Sciences

Andreas Olsson

Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Date: Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm BST (12:15pm – 1:15pm UTC)

Description: Can the science of affective learning guide research questions across disciplines? Please, join me to discuss the role of this core process in building our understanding of how humans are shaped as social beings. I’ll also share my thoughts about my own career journey – across labs, continents, and disciplinary boundaries, and raise questions about what to value in science.

Affective Neuroscience

Justin Minue Kim

Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm JST (4:15am – 5:15am UTC)

Description: Affective neuroscience research explores the neural bases of affective processing from two major viewpoints: universal mechanisms and individual differences. The latter in particular examines how psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of affective processing may manifest as systematic differences across individuals. Shedding light on how individual differences in affective processing map onto the brain is an important endeavor, as it serves as a bridge to clinical neuroscience (e.g., mood and anxiety disorders). In this salon, we will discuss what to look out for when performing individual differences research in affective neuroscience.

Neuropharmacology and Affect

Yina Ma

Beijing Normal University, China

Date: Thursday, April 15th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am JST (12:00am – 1:30am UTC)

Description: Neuropharmacological research integrates neuroscience techniques (e.g., fMRI, EEG, fNIRS), pharmacological challenge, and disorder model to elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms underlying social decision-making and emotional processes. I will share with you our recent neuropharmacological studies examining the role of oxytocin on social decision-making. I have also invited two of my colleagues (Shaozheng Qin and Ben Becker) as guest speakers, and we will discuss methodological issues and the new trends of computational modeling, real-time interaction, and precision pharmaco-imaging in neuropharmacological studies.

Computational Affective Neuroscience as Dimensionality Reduction

Choong-Wan (Wani) Woo

Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am JST (12:00am – 1:30am UTC)

Description: Human emotions are subjective and complex high-dimensional something that cannot be easily reduced to low dimensions. However, as scientists, we need to somehow reduce its dimensionality to get a handle on it. What are good low (behavioral or neural) dimensions that can explain the human emotions the best? What are good ways to reduce its dimensionality? These questions provide affective neuroscientists (us!!) with the challenges and opportunities. In this salon, first, let’s complain of the difficulties in doing emotion research together, and then let’s discuss how we do the dimensionality reduction better.

Applied Affective Science: From the Lab to the Field

Lisa Williams

University of New South Wales - Sydney, Australia

Date: Thursday, April 15th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am JST (12:00am – 1:30am UTC)

Description: Many affective scientists were trained and continue to predominantly work in “the lab” – under tightly controlled contexts with fairly constrained samples of participants. Opportunities abound for the translation of affective science to “the field” – where contexts are wild and participants hugely variable. In this salon, we’ll chat about the challenges and promise of transitioning a research program from the lab to the field, including securing funding for such work via industry and government partnerships.

Beyond Weird Affective Science

Carlos Crivelli

De Montfort University, UK

Date: Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm BST (12:15pm – 1:15pm UTC)

Description: Are affective scientists really committed to overcome narrow sampling? Which theoretical, methodological, and logistic factors prevent affective scientists from developing a less WEIRD-centered affective science? In this salon, we will constructively discuss the major challenges that we face when planning a research project in non-WEIRD societies, potential solutions, and the impact that this type of research has on our WEIRD theories of emotion.

– Career Spotlight –

Interdisciplinary Affective Science

Emily Falk

University of Pennsylvania, USA

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am PDT (4:00pm – 5:30pm UTC)

Description: How do we identify problems that matter most and then work in teams to solve them? Our field is inherently interdisciplinary, and collaboration with people from different fields, backgrounds, industries and sectors can lead to new innovation. It can also require more time, energy and risk. In this salon we will engage with exercises focused on identifying your purpose, and then successfully working in transdisciplinary teams to make meaningful progress forward.

Navigating the U.S. Job Market

Noah Emery

Colorado State University, USA

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am PDT (4:00pm – 5:30pm UTC)

Description: The U.S. academic job market is competitive and sometimes opaque. I will share insights and answer questions about my recent experiences applying, interviewing, and negotiating.

Finding a Job and Setting Up a Lab Overseas

Pin-Hao Andy Chen

National Taiwan University, Taiwan

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm JST (4:15am – 5:15am UTC)

Description: Institutions, grad school applications, and job markets vary widely from one country to the next. I received my B.S. and M.S. degrees in Taiwan and completed my Ph.D and postdoctoral research in the U.S. I then went on the global academic job market, ultimately returning to Taiwan to set up my own lab. In this salon, I will share my experiences conducting science while transitioning between cultures and institutions.

Transitions Between Career Stages and Continents

Magdalena Rychlowska

Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am BST (8:00am – 9:30am UTC)

Description: This salon (Q&A format) will involve discussions on transitioning from graduate school to faculty positions and on changing countries and institutions during the process.

Transitions to Industry

Emily Hittner

Hinge Labs, USA

Date: Thursday, April 15th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm BST (12:15pm – 1:15pm UTC)

Description: Panel to share experiences and answer questions about the transition from research in academia to industry.

Crafting A Career With Method(olog)ical Sophistication

Nilam Ram

Stanford University, USA

Date: Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm PDT (8:15pm – 9:15pm UTC)

Description: Scientific practice and success is often pushed forward through methodological innovations. We shall play with how planful, meaningful, and productive engagement with those innovations can hasten progress and enhance impact.

– Rejection & Resilience –

This salon will be about the many rejections we all meet in academia, how to handle them and how to realise that even the most successful people have long track records of rejections. Three successful scholars (Bliss-Moreau, Leknes, Pollack) will each happily share highlights from their own rejections, but more importantly take questions on what to learn and what not to learn from academic failures.

Rejection and Resilience

Eliza Bliss-Moreau

UC Davis, USA

Siri Leknes

University of Oslo, Norway

Seth Pollack

University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA

Speaker: Elizabeth Bliss-Moreau

Date: Thursday, April 15th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am JST (12:00am – 1:30am UTC)

Speaker: Siri Leknes

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am BST (8:00am – 9:30am UTC)

Speaker: Seth Pollak

Date: Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm PDT (8:15pm – 9:15pm UTC)

– Ask the Editor –

Three Editors from Affective Science are here to answer all of your burning questions about any aspect of the publishing or reviewing process. Don’t be shy – they might even bust some myths!

Ask the Editor

Lasana Harris

University College London, UK

Bob Levenson

UC Berkeley, USA

James Gross

Stanford University, USA

Speaker: Lasana Harris

Date: Wednesday, April 14th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm BST (12:15pm – 1:15pm UTC)

Speaker: Bob Levenson

Date: Thursday, April 15th, 2021

Time: 1:15pm – 2:15pm PDT (8:15pm – 9:15pm UTC)

Speaker: James Gross

Date: Friday, April 16th, 2021

Time: 9:00am – 10:00am JST (12:00am – 1:00am UTC)

– Ask Me Anything! –

Pearls of wisdom served on a silver plate at SAS 2021! Come along to these informal sessions and ask our well-seasoned SAS members all of your burning questions about navigating life as an affective science. Ask them anything!