Brendan Bo O'Connor

Brendan Bo O’Connor (Bren) is a scientist and artist. As an associate professor he directs the Imagination Lab: https://imaginationlaboratory.com/. The Imagination Lab leads interdisciplinary research that draws on psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience to explore the relationship between imagination, empathy, morality, future thinking, and collective cognition. As an artist, he is the creator and director of the Lucid Dream Minigolf project, an existential traveling minigolf course funded by the Alliance of Resident Theatres New York, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Awesome Foundation. Before UAlbany, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Boston College. He received his B.A. from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. You can follow him on Substack @brendanbooconnor