Maya Shankar Explained

Office:Senior Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy[1]
President:Barack Obama
Term Start:April 2013
Term End:January 19, 2017
Office1:Chair of Social and Behavioral Sciences Team
Alma Mater:B.A. Yale
Ph.D. Oxford
postdoctoral fellowship Stanford
Term Start1:September 2015
Term End1:January 19, 2017
Office2:First Behavioral Science Advisor to the United Nations
Term Start2:January 2016
Term End2:October 2016[2]
President2:Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon
Spouse:Jimmy Li

Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist and the host and executive producer of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans.[3]

Career

Podcast: A Slight Change of Plans

A Slight Change of Plans was first published in 2021 by Pushkin Industries, the media company co-founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jakob Weisberg.

A Slight Change of Plans explores what happens after a person experiences a life-changing event. It’s inspired by Shankar’s experience as a young classical violinist, training at Juilliard, whose career was cut short by an injury. “My whole childhood revolved around the violin, but that changed in a moment when I injured my hand playing a single note,” said Shankar. “I was forced to try and figure out who I was, and who I could be, without it.”

On the show, Shankar interviews people who have lived through different kinds of big changes — accidents, deaths, kidnappings — to understand how they navigated the waters ahead. The show emphasizes the universality of human psychology to help listeners feel less alone with their own choices. Shankar explains: “Cognitive science teaches us that the strategies we use to navigate those changes can be quite similar. Which is heartening to realize!”

A Slight Change of Plans was named the Apple Podcast of the Year in 2021.[4] In 2023, it won the Ambie Award for Best Personal Growth Podcast.[5] In 2022, Shankar earned a Webby nomination for Best Podcast Host.[6]

Career in behavioral science

Shankar served as a senior advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team,[7] which was formalized by Executive Order 13707 in 2015.[8] Her work at the White House was profiled by The New Yorker in 2017.[9]

Shankar also served as the first Behavioral Science Advisor to the United Nations.[10] She is a Director at Google.[11]

Early career as a musician

Shankar is a graduate of the pre-college program at the Juilliard School, where she was a private violin student of Itzhak Perlman.[12] When she was a teenager, she injured a tendon in her left hand, bringing her musical career to an end.[13] [14]

Education

Shankar earned her B.A. from Yale University in cognitive science and went on to earn her Ph.D. from the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. In 2013, Shankar completed her postdoctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford University.[15] She attended high school at the Juilliard School PreCollege program.

Personal life

Maya Shankar is the daughter of Ramamurti Shankar, Indian theoretical particle physicist and a professor at Yale University.[16] In her Meditative Story, The Joy of Being An Unwilling Traveler Through Life, she describes her father's influence on her and the insights he shared to ease her lifelong anxiety.[17]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: White House Author: Maya Shankar . December 27, 2019 . January 21, 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170121045920/https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/author/maya-shankar . . . 6 August 2014 . live .
  2. News: Secretary-General Meets UN Adviser on Behavioural Insights. United Nations . 2016-12-12.
  3. Web site: A Slight Change of Plans - Pushkin. 10 May 2021.
  4. News: Nov 30, 2021 . Apple Podcasts presents the Best of 2021 . Apple Newsroom . Dec 21, 2013.
  5. Web site: March 7, 2023 . 2023 Winners and Nominees . Dec 25, 2023 . The Ambie Awards.
  6. Web site: May 16, 2022 . Webby Awards: A Slight Change of Plans Podcast . Dec 25, 2023 . The Webby Awards.
  7. Book: Thaler, Richard. Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. June 2016. 344. 978-0-393-35279-5.
  8. Web site: Using Behavioral Science Insights To Better Serve the American People . November 24, 2021. .
  9. Can Behavioral Science Help in Flint?. The New Yorker. 16 January 2017.
  10. Web site: Maya Shankar Joins Center as Research Scholar. 2016-10-18. 2018-04-30.
  11. Web site: Maya Shankar . November 24, 2021. .
  12. News: Loss and Renewal . NPR.org. November 24, 2021. .
  13. Web site: Why We Do What We Do . March 27, 2019. December 27, 2019. End Well .
  14. Web site: Loss and Renewal: Moving Forward After A Door Closes . December 31, 2018 . December 27, 2019 . .
  15. Web site: Maya Shankar SIEPR Policy Forum. stanford.edu. December 27, 2019 . April 25, 2017 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170425150630/http://stanford.edu/group/policyforum/cgi-bin/drupal/node/401. dead .
  16. Web site: June 27, 2002 . How Do You Get to Camp? Practice, Of Course; Teenagers Who Play Music, Not Tennis . December 27, 2019 . New York Times.
  17. News: Shankar . Maya . July 14, 2022 . The joy of being an unwilling traveler through life . Meditative Story . December 25, 2023.