Prof. Sasha Sherman, PhD is Associate Professor and Chair of Cognitive Science at Occidental College, where she also serves as Director of the Center for Research and Scholarship. Her research sits at the intersection of mind science and the arts: exploring how perspective-taking in museums can deepen empathy, how our senses interact to shape what we experience, and how engaging with art generates meaning in our lives. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the NIH, and her book Why the Arts Matter is forthcoming in 2026 from Cambridge University Press. Drawing on EEG, eye-tracking, behavioral experiments, and qualitative methods, her work has been published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance and has been conducted in collaboration with the Autry Museum of the American West, Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art, and OxyArts. She holds a PhD from Northwestern University.

Her keynote, “Sparking Curiosity in Sync,” explores how cross-disciplinary research reveals the power of art to change us.