Alison Gopnik

Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. She is an internationally recognized leader in the study of children’s learning and development and was the first to argue that children’s minds could help us understand deep philosophical questions. Alison was one of the founders of the study of “theory of mind, “illuminating how children come to understand the minds of others, and she formulated the “theory theory,” the idea that children learn in the same way that scientists do.

Alison has authored over 100 articles and several books including Words, thoughts and theories (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff), The Scientist in the Crib (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl), and The Philosophical Baby: What children’s minds tell us about love, truth and the meaning of life. The Scientist in the Crib was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller and was translated into 20 languages.