Suzana Herculano-Houzel

Suzana Herculano-Houzel (born Suzana Carvalho Herculano Houzel, 1972) is a Brazilian neuroscientist. Her main field of work is comparative neuroanatomy; her findings include a method of counting of neurons of human and other animals' brains and the relation between the cerebral cortex area and thickness and number of cortical folds .

Biography

Suzana Herculano-Houzel was born in 1972 in Rio de Janeiro. She graduated in Biology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) (1992), got a master's degree at Case Western Reserve, a doctorate at Paris VI University (1995) and post-doctorate at Max Planck Institute (1999), all in neuroscience.

Herculano-Houzel was a faculty member at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro from 2002 up to May, 2016, when she moved to join Vanderbilt University.

She published books on popularization of science and writes columns for Folha de S.Paulo newspaper and Scientific American Brazil magazine. She was the first Brazilian speaker on TED Global in 2013.

She won the José Reis Prize of Science Communication in 2004.

Publications

• Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable. Editor: The Mit Press; (2016). ISBN 0262034255