About Maria Konnikova

Maria Konnikova, a writer based in New York City, is a doctoral candidate in Psychology at Columbia University, where she studies self-control and decision making. She is fascinated by the psychological insights that can be garnered from literature and feels that some of the best psychologists are to be found not in labs and ivory towers, but among the literary greats. Before re-embarking on her academic career in 2008, she worked as a Producer for the Charlie Rose show on PBS, where she developed and produced the Charlie Rose Science Series. She received her AB magna cum laude from Harvard, where she studied government, psychology, and creative writing, and holds an MPhil in Psychology and an MA in Political Science from Columbia.

When not writing or conducting definitive explorations into the workings of the human mind, Maria enjoys reading; yoga; good food (mostly eating it, but also cooking it), art, and music; exploring New York; and creating bios of herself in the third person. She lives in the West Village with her husband. She can be reached at maria.konnikova [at] bigthink [dot] com. Follow on Twitter @mkonnikova