Greenfield was chancellor of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh between 2005 and 2013.[8] From 1998 to 2010, she was director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.[9] In September 2013, she co-founded the biotech company Neuro-bio Ltd, where she is chief executive officer.
Early life
Greenfield's mother, Doris (née Thorp), was a dancer and a Christian, and her father, Reginald Myer Greenfield, was an electrician who was the son of a Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant from Austria; her grandmothers never spoke to each other and she said of them, "the prejudice was equally vociferous on both sides".[10][11]
Greenfield's research is focused on brain physiology, particularly on the brain mechanisms of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. She is also known for her role in popularising science. Greenfield has written several books about the brain, regularly gives public lectures, and appears on radio and television.[15]
In 1994, she was the first woman to give the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, then sponsored by the BBC. Her lectures were titled "Journey to the centre of the brain".[25] She was appointed Director of the Royal Institution in 1998.[26] The post was abolished in 2010.[27] The Royal Institution had found itself in a financial crisis following a £22m development programme led by Greenfield and the board. The project ended £3 million in debt.[28][29] Greenfield subsequently announced that she would be taking her employers to an employment tribunal and her claim would include discrimination.[30] The case was settled out of court.[31]
Greenfield's two main positions at Oxford were Tutorial Fellow in Medicine at Lincoln College Oxford,[7] and Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology.[citation needed] Between 1995 and 1999, she gave public lectures as Gresham Professor of Physic in London. Greenfield was Adelaide's Thinker in Residence for 2004 and 2005.[32]
As a result of her recommendations,[citation needed] South Australian Premier Mike Rann made a major funding commitment, backed by the state and federal governments and the private sector, to establish the Royal Institution of Australia and the Australian Science Media Centre in Adelaide.[33]
She has explored the relevance of neuroscience knowledge to education[34] and has used the phrase "mind change",[35] an umbrella term comparable to "climate change", encompassing diverse issues involved in the impact of the 21st-century environment on the brain.[36]
In 2013 she co-founded the biotech company Neuro-Bio Ltd which develops diagnostic tests and therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease. The company has found that the C terminus of acetylcholinesterase can be cleaved and that the resulting peptide can kill neurons; the company has also found that a cyclic peptide analogue could prevent that neuronal death.[37] The company raised around $4 million in 2017.[38]
Politics
Greenfield in 2013
Greenfield sits in the Parliament of the United Kingdom in the House of Lords as a crossbencher, having no formal political affiliation.[39] Records of Greenfield's activity in the House of Lords indicate abstention on a range of issues.[40] She has spoken on a variety of topics,[41] including education, drugs, and economic empowerment for women.[42]
Books
In 2013, Greenfield published a dystopian science-fiction novel, 2121: A Tale from the Next Century, telling the story of videogame-playing hedonists and their conflict with "Neo-Puritans".[43]
Greenfield has expressed concerns that internet usage may modify the brain structures of youngsters.[45][46]
She has had controversy surrounding her opinions on the relationship between technology use and Autism Spectrum Disorder. She originally linked the increase in Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis to increased screen-time in a 2011 New Scientist article,.[47] She defended this claim in 2014, in an interview with Stephen Sackur, on the BBC show HARDTalk, in which she claims to have collated 500 articles "in support of the possible problematic effects" of technology-use.[48]
She noted that Public Health England had related social networking and multiplayer online games to "lower levels of wellbeing", and believed that evidence pointed to a "dose response" relationship, "where each additional hour of viewing increases the likelihood of experiencing socio-emotional problems".[49] She believed this raised questions about where to draw the boundaries between beneficial and harmful use of such technology, saying that "it would be surprising if many hours per day of screen activity did not influence this neuroplasticity".[50]
In 2003, she was appointed a Knight of the Legion of Honour by the French Government.[52] In 2010 she was awarded the Australian Society for Medical Research Medal.[60] She received the British Inspiration award for Science and Technology in 2010.[61]
Patronage
She is a patron of Alzheimer's Research UK[62] and of Dignity in Dying.[63] She is a founder and trustee of the charity Science for Humanity, a network of scientists, researchers and technologists that collaborates with not-for-profit organisations to create practical solutions to the everyday problems of developing communities.[64]
Greenfield, Susan (2002). The Private Life of the Brain (Penguin Press Science). London, UK: Penguin Books Ltd. pp. 272 pages. ISBN0-14-100720-6.
Greenfield, Susan (2003). Tomorrow's People: How 21st Century Technology is Changing the Way we Think and Feel. London, UK: Allen Lane. pp. 304 pages. ISBN0-7139-9631-5.
Greenfield, Susan (2006). Inside the Body. London, UK: Cassell Illustrated. pp. 288 pages. ISBN1-84403-500-X.
Greenfield, Susan (2008). ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century. London, UK: Sceptre. pp. 320 pages. ISBN978-0-340-93600-9.
Greenfield, Susan (2011). You and Me: The Neuroscience of Identity. London, UK: Notting Hill Editions. ISBN978-1907903342.
Greenfield, Susan (2013). 2121: A Tale from the Next Century. London, UK: Head of Zeus.
^British Council on Science (2007). "Baroness Greenfield". British Council on Science. Archived from the original on 28 August 2007. Retrieved 27 October 2007.
^Devonshire, I. M.; Dommett, E. J.; Grandy, T. H.; Halliday, A. C.; Greenfield, S. A. (2010). "Environmental enrichment differentially modifies specific components of sensory-evoked activity in rat barrel cortex as revealed by simultaneous electrophysiological recordings and optical imaging in vivo". Neuroscience. 170 (2): 662–69. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2010.07.029. PMID20654700. S2CID23618724.
