Patricia Smith Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute. Her research focuses on the interface between neuroscience and philosophy. She explores the impact of scientific developments on our understanding of consciousness, the self, free will, decision making, ethics, learning, and religion. She is author of the groundbreaking book Neurophilosophy (1986), coauthor with T. J. Sejnowski of The Computational Brain (1992), and coauthor with Paul Churchland of On the Contrary (1998). She has been president of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and she won a MacArthur Fellowship in 1991.