Amy Myers Jaffe
Director, Energy, Climate Justice & Sustainability Lab, NYU | Research Professor | Expert on Energy Geopolitics, AI & Grid, and Climate Risk
Moran Cerf
Neuroscientist & Professor of Neuroscience and Business, Columbia Business School | Former White-Hat Hacker | TED Speaker | Authority on Decision-Making, Dreams & Engagement
Moran Cerf is a neuroscientist and professor of neuroscience and business at Columbia Business School who spent nearly a decade as a white-hat hacker before turning those skills on the brain. He studies single neurons in patients during brain surgery to understand decisions, emotions, and dreams, work published in Nature and featured at TED. On stage, he turns hard neuroscience into unforgettable insight for business audiences.
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Moran Cerf biography
Moran Cerf is one of the most unusual and compelling minds working at the intersection of neuroscience and business. He spent nearly a decade as a hacker, hired to break into banks and government institutions to expose the weaknesses in their security, before a conversation with Nobel laureate Francis Crick convinced him to point those same skills at a far more interesting target: the human brain. Today he studies what happens inside our heads when we decide, feel, remember, and dream.
Science speaker Moran Cerf is a professor of neuroscience and business at Columbia Business School, and previously spent nearly a decade in the same role at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. His research is genuinely rare: working with patients undergoing brain surgery for clinical reasons, he records the activity of individual neurons through implanted electrodes, effectively eavesdropping on single brain cells in real time. That work, published in journals including Nature and Science, has produced striking insights into decision-making, emotional control, what makes content engaging, and how much free will we actually have.
From the Ultimate Black Box to the Business of the Brain
Cerf holds a PhD in neuroscience from Caltech, along with degrees in philosophy and physics, and roughly ninety academic publications and multiple patents to his name. He is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor at the American Film Institute, a Carnegie fellow examining how neuroscience and AI bear on high-stakes decision-making, and a science consultant to Hollywood productions including Limitless and Mr. Robot. He is also an unusually gifted storyteller: a repeat winner of The Moth GrandSLAM, a TED main-stage speaker, and a fixture at PopTech and the World Economic Forum. His faculty work at Columbia Business School focuses on helping leaders apply what we now know about the brain to thinking, decision-making, and customer engagement.
As a speaker, Moran Cerf is the rare scientist who can hold a room like a performer without diluting the science. He speaks on the neuroscience of decision-making and free will, what actually captures attention and engagement, emotion, memory, and dreams, and the ethics of technology that can read and influence the mind. Audiences leave genuinely rearranged, with a far sharper sense of why people, including themselves, choose what they choose.
Moran Cerf Speaking Videos
Can you trust your own brain? | Moran Cerf | TEDxPorto
Making big decisions (from a scientist revising the nuclear protocol) | Moran Cerf | TEDxGateway
Moran Cerf Keynote Topics
Cerf takes audiences inside the operating room, where he records individual brain cells in conscious patients, and explains what that vantage point has taught him about how thought actually works. It is a genuinely astonishing look at the frontier of neuroscience, told by one of very few researchers on earth with this kind of access, and it reframes how audiences understand their own minds.
Cerf's research suggests our choices can sometimes be detected in the brain before we are consciously aware of making them. He explores what that means for how leaders, teams, and customers decide, why humans behave irrationally in predictable ways, and how understanding the machinery underneath judgment leads to better decisions and better-designed organizations.
Why does some content grip us and other content slide past? Cerf has spent years identifying the neural signatures of engagement, work that has made him a leading voice on the brain science behind marketing, storytelling, and communication. He shows audiences what actually holds human attention, and how to build messages and narratives that land.
Drawing on the research that took him to the TED main stage, Cerf explains how dreams are formed, why we forget them, and what his lab has learned about the sleeping brain's role in memory and behavior. Equal parts fascinating and practical, it opens up a side of human cognition most audiences have never seriously considered.
Speaker topics
FAQs on Booking Moran Cerf
Why Moran Cerf?
Booking Moran Cerf gives audiences a scientist with genuine frontier credentials and the stage presence of a professional storyteller, a combination that is very hard to find. He is a Columbia Business School professor whose research recording individual human neurons has been published in Nature and Science, a former hacker who spent a decade breaking into banks and government systems to test their defenses, a Hollywood science consultant, and a repeat winner of The Moth GrandSLAM storytelling competition. The result is a talk that is rigorous and unforgettable at once, and that translates directly into how leaders think about decisions, attention, and behavior. He is an ideal speaker for events on science, innovation, marketing, leadership, and human behavior. To bring Moran Cerf to your next event, contact Aurum Speakers Bureau.
Who is Moran Cerf?
Moran Cerf is an American-French-Israeli neuroscientist and a professor of neuroscience and business at Columbia Business School, having previously held the same role at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management for nearly a decade. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from Caltech and degrees in philosophy and physics from Tel Aviv University. Before academia, he worked for nearly a decade as a white-hat hacker testing the security of financial and government institutions. His research on single-neuron recordings in humans has appeared in journals including Nature, and he has spoken at TED, PopTech, and the World Economic Forum.
Was Moran Cerf really a hacker?
Yes. Before becoming a neuroscientist, Cerf spent close to a decade working in security in the Israeli technology industry, hired by banks, corporations, and government institutions to break into their systems, and in some cases their physical premises, in order to find and fix vulnerabilities. This is known as white-hat or "ethical" hacking, and the work was authorized by the organizations themselves. A conversation with Nobel laureate Francis Crick, who suggested applying hacking skills to "the most interesting vault in the world, our brain," led him to leave the industry for a PhD in neuroscience at Caltech.
What topics does science speaker Moran Cerf cover?
Moran Cerf speaks on the neuroscience of decision-making and free will, the science of attention and engagement, memory and dreams, and the ethics of technologies that can read or influence the brain. His keynotes suit events on science, innovation, marketing, leadership, technology, and human behavior. To book Moran Cerf as a speaker, contact Aurum Speakers Bureau.
How to book Moran Cerf as a keynote speaker?
Aurum Speakers Bureau can help you book Moran Cerf as a speaker for your next event, conference, or board meeting. Simply fill out our contact form to inquire about Moran Cerf's availability for a speaking engagement. One of our booking agents will respond to your request immediately and contact the speaker to let them know you want to hire them. We will assist you with obtaining speaking fees, booking information, and confirming availability for Moran Cerf or any other top keynote speaker or celebrity of your choice.
How much is Moran Cerf speaking fee?
Moran Cerf speaking fees are determined by several factors, including the event's date, whether it's a virtual or in-person event, the duration, format, preparation required for their speech, and more. The same applies to the cost to hire any other top expert speakers and celebrities. The Speaker Fee Range listed on our website is simply a guideline and is subject to change without notice. If you would like to hire Moran Cerf to deliver a keynote speech for your event, please fill out the contact form or email us at info@aurumbureau.com with as much detail as possible. One of our experienced agents will get in touch with you and let you know exactly how much it will cost to book Moran Cerf.
How can I contact Moran Cerf?
We only work with Moran Cerf on paid speaking engagements. Aurum Speakers Bureau can assist you in booking Moran Cerf and will handle all negotiations, contracts, and logistics associated with having Moran Cerf speak at your event. We will be your sole point of contact throughout the process. Get in touch with Aurum Speakers Bureau today, and we will reach out to any motivational speaker or celebrity you want to enquire about speaking at your event. If you wish to contact Moran Cerf for any other reason, we will be unable to assist you as we are not authorized to provide personal contact information.
Can I book Moran Cerf for a virtual keynote?
Yes, Moran Cerf is available for virtual keynotes and webinars. To book Moran Cerf for a virtual event, please complete the contact form or send us an email to inquire about the special fees for virtual engagements.
