...Ever since she was a kid, Elizabeth Ricker has been skulking around science labs and scheming ways to unlock mental potential...
"The first lab I skulked around in was my dad's astrophysics lab, the second was a neurodevelopmental biology lab I talked my way into working at during high school. High school proved formative in another area, too. Suffering from performance anxiety and attention issues, I competed so poorly on my high school sports team that my coach asked me to leave at the end of the season. After learning to master my own mind, however, I won back my spot on the team, ultimately going on to attain a top-20 national ranking and then crossing over to compete on the men's team in college. I began teaching and coaching in my spare time. As an undergraduate at MIT and later as a graduate student at Harvard, I discovered that I could combine my love of skulking around labs with a passion for unlocking potential - by researching technology aimed at enhancing mental performance and then teaching people to use that technology on themselves."
Scientific Communication: Upcoming popular science book on cognitive enhancement and self-experimentation "The 15-Minute Brain: Inside the World of Self-Experimentation, Neurohacking, and the Quest to Upgrade Intelligence" currently under contract with Little, Brown Spark (Hachette Book Group). Short form articles covering education and neuroscience for a lay audience have won Best of North America (Fair Observer, 2012) and consistently place as front page articles.
Invited Symposia, Talks, Presentations, and/or Panels: The Kaufmann Foundation for Entrepreneurship, MIT Chairman’s Salon, Harvard Graduate School of Education, MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences Society, Kairos Society, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the First International Whole Brain Learning Conference in Suzhou, China (2010-2015)
Academics and Research: Undergraduate degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, graduate degree from Harvard in Mind, Brain, and Education. Research at both institutions, including educational technology research at the MIT Media Lab and molecular neuroscience research with a Nobel laureate.
Awards in entrepreneurship, innovation, teaching, and leadership awards: TEDMED Frontline Scholarship, Silicon Valley Leadership Program TiE, StartingBloc Fellowship, MIT Venture Mentoring Service (2009-2013), and Employee of the Month at the MIT Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center.
Business Leadership: Elizabeth has held product and program management positions in education and healthcare technology companies that have cumulatively raised over $100 million and had their products used by over 70 million individuals worldwide. She has consulted for venture capital, the Fortune 500, and advised early stage MIT and Harvard spin-outs on a range topics, from architectural design online marketplaces to mobile apps driven by biologically-inspired artificial intelligence.
Other: Regional Get-Out-the-Vote Director on Barack Obama's presidential campaign (2008) and on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign (2016), nationally ranked squash player, student class president in college.
"The first lab I skulked around in was my dad's astrophysics lab, the second was a neurodevelopmental biology lab I talked my way into working at during high school. High school proved formative in another area, too. Suffering from performance anxiety and attention issues, I competed so poorly on my high school sports team that my coach asked me to leave at the end of the season. After learning to master my own mind, however, I won back my spot on the team, ultimately going on to attain a top-20 national ranking and then crossing over to compete on the men's team in college. I began teaching and coaching in my spare time. As an undergraduate at MIT and later as a graduate student at Harvard, I discovered that I could combine my love of skulking around labs with a passion for unlocking potential - by researching technology aimed at enhancing mental performance and then teaching people to use that technology on themselves."
Scientific Communication: Upcoming popular science book on cognitive enhancement and self-experimentation "The 15-Minute Brain: Inside the World of Self-Experimentation, Neurohacking, and the Quest to Upgrade Intelligence" currently under contract with Little, Brown Spark (Hachette Book Group). Short form articles covering education and neuroscience for a lay audience have won Best of North America (Fair Observer, 2012) and consistently place as front page articles.
Invited Symposia, Talks, Presentations, and/or Panels: The Kaufmann Foundation for Entrepreneurship, MIT Chairman’s Salon, Harvard Graduate School of Education, MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences Society, Kairos Society, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the First International Whole Brain Learning Conference in Suzhou, China (2010-2015)
Academics and Research: Undergraduate degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Brain and Cognitive Sciences, graduate degree from Harvard in Mind, Brain, and Education. Research at both institutions, including educational technology research at the MIT Media Lab and molecular neuroscience research with a Nobel laureate.
Awards in entrepreneurship, innovation, teaching, and leadership awards: TEDMED Frontline Scholarship, Silicon Valley Leadership Program TiE, StartingBloc Fellowship, MIT Venture Mentoring Service (2009-2013), and Employee of the Month at the MIT Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center.
Business Leadership: Elizabeth has held product and program management positions in education and healthcare technology companies that have cumulatively raised over $100 million and had their products used by over 70 million individuals worldwide. She has consulted for venture capital, the Fortune 500, and advised early stage MIT and Harvard spin-outs on a range topics, from architectural design online marketplaces to mobile apps driven by biologically-inspired artificial intelligence.
Other: Regional Get-Out-the-Vote Director on Barack Obama's presidential campaign (2008) and on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign (2016), nationally ranked squash player, student class president in college.