Biography

Jean Decety, Ph.D.
Visiting Professor, Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences

Dr. Jean Decety was a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (2003-2005), where he headed the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab. In the 2005-2006 academic year he joined the faculty at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Decety studied cognitive neuropsychology and neurobiology at the University Claude Bernard in Lyons, France, and earned a doctorate in Neurobiology in 1989. After completing a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in Sweden, at Lund University Hospital and at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, he joined INSERM, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, as a senior scientist and Director of Research. He also served as head of INSERM's research program on the Neurophysiology of Intentionality.

Dr. Decety is an internationally recognized expert in cognitive neuroscience and functional brain imaging (positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)). His recent research focuses on the neural correlates of intersubjectivity, empathy, and theory of mind in healthy people, as well as in schizophrenic and autistic individuals. At the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, he continues his research on these topics and has broadened his work to include intersubjectivity, empathy, and imitation in children.

Dr. Decety is an advisor for the Odile Jacob Publishing House in Paris for books on evolutionary theories, anthropology and neurosciences. He is widely published in international psychology and neuroscience journals, and has edited several noted books on these topics. He is married and lives with his wife, Sylvie, and two sons, Nathan and Glenn Ariel, in Chicago.

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