Keren Haroush is an assistant professor at Stanford University. Her work focuses on how the complex architecture of neural circuits supports the distributed computations underlying social interactions.

Haroush performed her graduate work at the Hebrew University with Shaul Hochstein, studying the temporal dynamics of multisensory attention. She then moved to Harvard Medical School, where she joined the laboratory of Ziv Williams. As part of her postdoctoral research, she identified a group of neurons that predict another’s hidden intentions and future actions. These neurons are likely a key basis for the capacity of theory of mind.

In her own laboratory, Haroush continues to study the mechanisms by which highly complex behaviors are mediated at the neuronal level, mainly focusing on the example of dynamic social interactions and the neural circuits that drive them. Addressing these questions will pave the path toward a basic understanding and translational approaches to ameliorating disorders characterized by impaired social interactions, such as autism spectrum disorder.