Applications for the Rhodes Scholarship 2026 are open! Click here to learn more.

Applications for the Rhodes Scholarship 2026 are open! Click here to learn more.

Open

Scholars' Library: Maya Shankar on 'The Other Side of Change'

Scholars' Library: Maya Shankar on 'The Other Side of Change'

Open to All

27 January 2026


19:00 - 20:00 (GMT+00:00)


Online Platform

Description

Tuesday, 27 January -  19:00 (UK)/ 11:00 (PT)/ 14:00 (ET)

This event is free and open to the public.

In our January event, Dr Maya Shankar (Connecticut & New College 2007) will discuss her book The Other Side of Change - Who We Become When Life Makes Other Plans.

Read more about her book here


Maya Shankar is a cognitive scientist and creator of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans, previously named “Best Show of the Year” by Apple. She served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Obama White House where she founded and chaired the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, which President Obama formalized by Executive Order in 2015. She was also appointed as the first Behavioral Science Advisor to the United Nations. Maya has a B.A. from Yale and a doctorate from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford. She has been profiled by The New Yorker, has been a guest on NPR, CBS Mornings, and The Today Show, and was featured as a neuroscience expert on National Geographic’s Limitless with Chris Hemsworth. She is a former violin student of Itzhak Perlman at Juilliard.

Register Here


Q & A:

Please feel free to submit any questions in advance to alumni@rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk or you can use the Q&A function within Zoom to ask questions directly during the live event.

Part of the Lifelong Fellowship portfolio, The Scholars’ Library is a monthly book talk series, where Rhodes alumni can come together to present, discover and debate their literary works. If you’re interested in getting involved, please reach out to Nayana Niji at alumni@rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk