Susan Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield

The Baroness Greenfield
Born	Susan Adele Greenfield (1950-10-01) 1 October 1950 Hammersmith, London, England, UK
Nationality	British
Institutions	University of Oxford Royal Institution of Great Britain Heriot-Watt University Lincoln College, Oxford House of Lords
Alma mater	St Hilda's College, Oxford
Thesis	Origins of acetylcholinesterase in cerebrospinal fluid (1977)
Doctoral advisor	Anthony David Smith
Notable awards	CBE Chevalier Légion d'honneur
Spouse	Peter Atkins (m. 1991–2005)
Website www.susangreenfield.com

Susan Adele Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield, CBE, HonFRCP (born 1 October 1950) is a British scientist, writer, broadcaster, and member of the House of Lords. Her research has focused on the treatment of Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. She is also interested in the neuroscience of consciousness and the impact of technology on the brain.

Greenfield is Senior Research Fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford University and was Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology. From 2005 to 2012, she was also Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh between 2005 and 2013. From 1998 to 2010, she was director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. In September 2013, she co-founded the biotech company Neuro-bio Ltd, where she is Chief Executive Officer.

Education

Susan Adele Greenfield was born to a Jewish father and a Christian mother in Hammersmith, London. Her mother, Doris (née Thorp), was a dancer, and her father, Reginald Myer Greenfield, was an electrician.

She attended the Godolphin and Latymer School, where she took A levels in Latin, Greek and ancient history, and maths. The first member of her immediate family to go on to university, she was initially admitted to St Hilda's College to read Philosophy, Psychology and Psychiatry, graduated with a first degree in experimental psychology. As a Senior Scholar at St Hugh's College, Oxford, she completed her DPhil degree in 1977 under the supervision of Anthony David Smith on the Origins of acetylcholinesterase in cerebrospinal fluid. She then held a junior research fellowship at Green College, Oxford between 1981 - 1984.

Career

Greenfield's research is focused on brain physiology, particularly on the brain mechanisms of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, but she is also known as a populariser of science. Greenfield has written a range of books about the brain, regularly gives public lectures, and appears on radio and television.

Since 1976, Greenfield has published some 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals, including studies on the basic brain mechanisms involved in addiction and reward, i.e. relating to dopamine systems and related neurochemicals. She investigated the brain mechanisms underlying Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as well as the impact of environmental enrichment.

In 1994, she was invited to be the first woman to give the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture, then sponsored by the BBC. Her lecture was titled "Journey to the centre of the brain". She was appointed Director of the Royal Institution in 1998,. The post was abolished in 2010. The Royal Institution had found itself in a financial crisis following a £22m development programme led by Greenfield and the Board. The project ended £3 million in debt. Greenfield subsequently announced that she would be taking her employers to an employment tribunal and her claim would include discrimination, but the case was settled out of court.

Greenfield's two main posts at Oxford were as Tutorial Fellow in Medicine at Lincoln College Oxford, and Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology. From 1995 to 1999, she gave public lectures as Gresham Professor of Physic in London. Greenfield was Adelaide's Thinker in Residence for 2004 and 2005. As a result of her recommendations, South Australian Premier Mike Rann made a major funding commitment, backed by the State and Federal Governments and the private sector, to establish the Royal Institution of Australia and the Australian Science Media Centre in Adelaide.

She has explored the relevance of neuroscience knowledge to education and has introduced the concept of "mind change", an umbrella term comparable to "climate change", encompassing the diverse issues involved in the impact of the 21st-century environment on the brain.

Politics

Baroness Greenfield sits in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in the House of Lords as a crossbencher, having no formal political affiliation. Records of Baroness Greenfield's activity in the House of Lords indicate abstention on a range of issues. She has spoken on a variety of topics, including education, drugs, and economic empowerment for women.

Books

In 1995 Greenfield published her own theory of consciousness in Journey to the Centres of the Mind (1995), which was developed substantially in The Private Life of the Brain (2000). Her book The Human Brain: A Guided Tour (1997) was followed byTomorrow’s People (2003), which explored human nature and its potential vulnerability in an age of technology. These ideas were expanded in her later book, ID (2009). The theme of unprecedented changes to contemporary human cognition was briefly explored in a monograph You and Me (2011), and was later developed further in an in-depth exploration of the impact of technology on the brain in Mind Change published in 2014 by Random House. A further book A Day in the Life of the Brain is due to be published by Penguin in early 2016.

In 2013 Greenfield published a dystopian science-fiction novel, 2121: A Tale from the Next Century, telling the story of videogame-playing hedonists and their conflict with "Neo-Puritans".

Impact of digital technology controversy

In press interviews, at public speaking events, as well as in her writing, Greenfield has expressed concerns that modern technology, and in particular social networking sites and video games, may have a significant impact on child development as a factor in autistic-like behaviour. She noted that Public Health England had related social networking and multiplayer online games to "lower levels of wellbeing", and believed that evidence pointed to a "dose-response" relationship, "where each additional hour of viewing increases the likelihood of experiencing socio-emotional problems". She believed this raised questions about where to draw the boundaries between beneficial and harmful use of such technology, saying that "it would be surprising if many hours per day of screen activity did not influence this neuroplasticity".

Greenfield has been criticised for explicitly linking the increase in internet usage to a rise in autism. In an 2015 article in the BMJ, clinical psychologist Vaughan Bell, developmental psychologist Dorothy Bishop and psychologist Andrew Przybylski took Greenfield to task for her statements, writing that Greenfield's notion had "no basis in scientific evidence" and was "entirely implausible in light of what we know of autism as a neurodevelopmental condition". They expressed concern that her work could be misleading to parents.

Greenfield had already been criticised for failing to publish any research into her theories of technology's impact on child development. Ben Goldacre suggested that "A scientist with enduring concerns about a serious widespread risk would normally set out their concerns clearly, to other scientists, in a scientific paper."

Honours

Greenfield has 32 honorary degrees, and has received awards including the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Prize. She has been elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and the London Science Museum. In 2006 she was made an Honorary Fellow of the British Science Association and was the Honorary Australian of the Year.

In January 2000, Greenfield received the CBE for her contribution to the public understanding of science. Later that year, she was named Woman of the Year by The Observer. In 2001, she became a Life Peer under the via the House of Lords Appointments Commission system, as Baroness Greenfield, of Ot Moor in the County of Oxfordshire.

In 2003, she was appointed a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur by the French Government. In 2010 she was awarded the Australian Society for Medical Research Medal. She also received the British Inspiration award for Science and Technology in 2010.

Patronage

She is a patron of the Alzheimer's Research UK and of Dignity in Dying. She is a founder and trustee of the charity Science for Humanity, a network of scientists, researchers and technologists that collaborates with non-profits to create practical solutions to the everyday problems of developing communities.

Personal life

Greenfield was married to University of Oxford Professor Peter Atkins from 1991 until their divorce in 2005.

Further reading

• Screen culture may be changing our brains Australian Broadcasting Corporation: The 7.30 Report, 19 March 2009
• 'Stumbling into a Powerful Technology' (Address to the House of Lords), 20 April 2006

External links

• Susan Greenfield's website
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Baroness Greenfield
• Oxford home page
• Bio from the Social Issues Research Centre
• Education Guardian biography
• Biography and Interviews
• The Wrong Chemistry
• Audio: Susan Greenfield in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion programme The Forum
• Knight Ayton Management: Professor Susan Greenfield
• Neuroscience in the 20th Century, 24 December 1998, BBC Radio program In Our Time
• Chaos Theory, 16 May 2002, BBC Radio program In Our Time

Academic offices
Preceded by Anne McLaren	Fullerian Professor of Physiology 1999–present	Succeeded by —
Cultural offices
Preceded by Peter Day	Director of the Royal Institution 1998–2010	Succeeded by Post abolished