ALLAN SNYDER, Director of The Centre for the Minds, holds the Peter Karmel Chair of Science and the Mind at The Australian National University, where he is also Head of the Optical Science Centre and Professor of Visual Science and Optical Physics. At the University of Sydney he holds the 150th Anniversary Chair of Science and the Mind.

Previously he was with the Yale University School of Medicine. He has degrees from Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University College, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and is the society's 2001 Clifford Paterson Prize Lecturer.