Led by Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor Michael Platt, the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative is a deliberate mash-up of neuroscience and business, with the intention of exploring every domain in which the two can inform each other.

At first, business and neuroscience might seem like animprobable pair. So when Penn launched its WhartonNeuroscience Initiative, WiN for short, its distinctivenessspurred particular attention: How exactly do thetwo fields coincide?

Its shocking and provocative, says Michael Platt,the programs founding director. But thats exactlywhat we aim to be. The Wharton Neuroscience Initiativeis a deliberate mash-up of neuroscience and business,and our intention is to explore every domain inwhich these two can inform each other.

WiN launched this past September, and opened itsbright, new space in Steinberg-Dietrich Hallrightnext to the Wharton Behavioral Labjust before winterbreak.

Its led by Platt, a Penn Integrates Knowledge professorwith appointments in the departments of Neuroscience,Psychology, and Marketing, and ElizabethJohnson, WiNs executive director and senior fellow.The duo worked for more than a decade together atDuke University before coming to Penn last year. KateMolt, who formerly worked in Whartons marketing department,serves as the programs coordinator.

Wharton is not your grandfathers school of financeanymore, Platt says. Just as it has put majorinvestments into analytics and innovation, Whartonknows neuroscience will be key to the practice in thenext decade.

The relationship often comes down to decisionmakingsomething the business community spends alot of time thinking about.

But we know relatively little about the biologicalmechanisms that underlie decision-making, says Johnson,a neuroscientist by training. Although there havebeen great strides made in the last 15 years in that capacity,it hasnt moved into the realm of applicationyet.

Platt continues, We are finally in a position to applythat knowledge in a much more real-world environment,to real-world questions that have impact. Whatwas a dream 20 years ago can now be achieved.

WiNs goal isnt to turn Wharton students into neuroscientists.Its more about developing a common language.

You have to have a lingua franca in order to evenbegin to have creative applications emerging out of thiscommunity, Johnson says. You have to have a sense ofopen communication between disciplines, which thisforum provides.

Some early faculty affiliates include the AnnenbergSchool for Communications Emily Falk, whose workpredicts behavior change after exposure to persuasivemessages; the Wharton Schools Gideon Nave, whostudies the biological basis for how humans make decisions;the School of Engineering and Applied SciencesDanielle Bassett, who uses tools from network scienceand complex systems theory to enhance understandingof connectivity in the brain; and the School of Arts &Sciences Coren Apicella, who analyzes the evolutionaryorigins of social behaviors.

The Initiative hopes to amplify the academichomes of its faculty members, as well as students, Johnsonsays.

I think situating this kind of initiative at a universitywhere its a walking campus in an urban landscape,where the schools of medicine, law, business, arts andsciences, even vet, are all right here, is an incredibleasset, she says. It encourages movement into an intellectualspace like Wharton, where they may not havefelt was their home before.

As WiN continues to develop its presence on campus,it hopes to be a place for related educationitsalready spearheading new coursesand abundant researchopportunities.

We hope to bolster the educational andresearch platform to make it possible to dointegrative research thats both vertical andhorizontal, Johnson explains. By vertical Imean undergraduates all the way throughfaculty, but even more vertical to includeoutside partners from industry and thecorporate world, and by horizontal I meanfrom across many different disciplines.

A big part of WiNs plans is also to sponsorregular, open-to-the-public events. Itsalready coordinated a half-day conferencethis past December, focused on the interactionsbetween brain science and marketing.

Philadelphia is such a hub of activityfor us, and we want to engage with the communityat large, Johnson says. It will onlyincrease what we are capable of doing.

Originally published on Thursday, May 11, 2017.

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Pairing business and neuroscience - Penn Current