Natalia Schwien | Cognitive Anthropology | Best Researcher Award

Published on by Cognitive Scientist Awards

Ms. Natalia Schwien | Cognitive Anthropology | Best Researcher Award

Harvard University | United States

Natalia Schwien Scott (she/they) is a multidisciplinary scholar, herbalist, and wildlife rehabilitation apprentice currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion at Harvard University. Her work bridges ecology, spirituality, and relational ontologies, exploring the interconnection between the human and more-than-human worlds. She holds a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School with a concentration in ecology and spiritual practice, and an M.A. in English Literature from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School, focusing on science fiction and fantasy. Natalia integrates her academic research with over two decades of herbalist practice and hands-on wildlife care. She is the Associate Director of Harvard’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality and leads “Interspecies Dialogues,” a transdisciplinary forum on animism and posthumanism. Natalia’s research, essays, and interviews have been published in peer-reviewed journals and featured in prominent media. She also releases music under the moniker Ellayo and curates multimedia content at selkieprojects.com

Profile

ORCID

Education

Natalia’s educational journey reflects her deep engagement with interdisciplinary study. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion at Harvard University, focusing on comparative religion and science, with a secondary emphasis in Celtic Languages and Literatures. She also holds a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, where she concentrated on ecology and spiritual practice. Complementing this, she earned a Master of Arts from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English with a literary focus on science fiction and fantasy. Natalia has studied at Oxford University’s Lincoln College and completed a graduate summer program at the University of Amsterdam. Her undergraduate degree is a B.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She possesses translation competence in Old Irish, German, French, and Latin, alongside elementary proficiency in contemporary Irish—skills that enhance her exploration of myth, folklore, and scientific discourse in both historical and modern contexts.

Experience

Natalia’s professional experience spans academia, environmental sustainability, and interspecies advocacy. At Harvard University, she serves as Associate Director of the Program for the Evolution of Spirituality and Associate Editor of the Thinking with Plants & Fungi initiative. She facilitates interdisciplinary dialogues through “Interspecies Dialogues,” featuring scholars and practitioners on animism and posthumanism. She has held multiple Teaching Fellow roles across departments, including Anthropology, Celtic Studies, and Divinity. Formerly, Natalia worked as a Sustainability Specialist at Middlebury College’s Franklin Environmental Center. Her ecological advocacy includes wildlife rehabilitation apprenticeships in Vermont and Massachusetts, where she worked with Wild on Blissville, ParkHill Wildlife Rehab, and Newhouse Wildlife Rescue. She has over 20 years of herbalist practice, including a three-year apprenticeship with Vanessa Chakour. Natalia’s teaching, organizing, and publishing reflect her commitment to relational ethics, ecological justice, and knowledge pluralism that spans academic, artistic, and indigenous traditions.

Awards and Honors

Natalia has garnered recognition for her interdisciplinary excellence, spiritual-ecological scholarship, and public engagement. While specific named awards are not listed, her selection as Associate Director of Harvard’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality reflects institutional recognition of her leadership and innovation. Her editorial role with Harvard University Press’s forthcoming Thinking with Plants & Fungi volume further underscores her scholarly merit. Her academic work has been published in peer-reviewed journals like Pomegranate and Museum Anthropology, and her thought leadership has been featured in public-facing platforms including The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Vice, and For The Wild. Her appointment as co-facilitator and organizer of multiple Harvard-based workshops and reading groups evidences peer and faculty trust. Additionally, her music project Ellayo and writing projects reflect an ability to bridge intellectual work with artistic and spiritual communities—an integrative approach increasingly recognized in cutting-edge religious and ecological studies

Research Focus

Natalia’s research explores relational ontologies, posthuman ethics, and plant consciousness through the lens of religious studies and Celtic literature. Her work interrogates scientific and theological conceptions of personhood, particularly regarding plants, animals, and other nonhuman entities. She examines how premodern and indigenous cosmologies intersect with contemporary ecological crises and philosophical discourse, often engaging animism, myth, and folklore to decenter anthropocentric narratives. Her doctoral research at Harvard weaves together religious thought, Old Irish mythology, and scientific language to address how societies conceptualize interspecies relationships. Her peer-reviewed articles explore themes like plant personhood and the role of nonhuman remains in natural history museums. She also co-edits the forthcoming volume Thinking with Plants & Fungi, engaging scholars across disciplines. Her academic contributions are complemented by field practices in herbalism and wildlife care, positioning her as a researcher deeply grounded in embodied ecological practice and interspecies relationality.

 

Publications

The Relics of Science: Nonhuman Bodies in Natural History and Zoological Museum
Year: 2025

The Plant Delighteth: Plant Personhood in the Study of Western Esotericism
Year: 2025

Conclusion

Natalia Schwien Scott is a dynamic scholar-practitioner whose interdisciplinary work at the intersection of ecology, religion, and posthuman studies advances both academic inquiry and real-world interspecies care through research, teaching, and community engagement.

Grit Hein | Social Neuroscience | Best Paper Award

Published on by Cognitive Scientist Awards

prof. Grit Hein | Social Neuroscience | Best Paper Award

 

Universität Würzburg, Germany

Profile

Education

She studied Psychology at Humboldt-University in Berlin, Germany, and City College in New York, USA, completing her diploma in 1999 with a grade of “very good.” She earned her doctorate in 2002 at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and Humboldt-University in Berlin. Her academic and professional career progressed through various prestigious positions. In 2002, she began as a research associate at MRC Cambridge, UK, and the University Hospital Frankfurt/M. She then received a DFG-Research Stipend in 2006, conducting research at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of Berkeley, USA. In 2008, she was awarded the Society-in-Science Stipend and became a Principal Investigator in an independent research project at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. She completed her habilitation and obtained her Venia Legendi in Psychology at Goethe-University Frankfurt/M. in 2014. She later served as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 2015. In 2017, she was appointed as a Heisenberg Professor at JMU Würzburg, where she continued to advance her research. In 2021, she became a Professor of Translational Social Neuroscience at JMU Würzburg and a Steering Committee Member of the Research Training Group RTG 2660, working alongside Professor Dr. Matthias Gamer in Psychology.

Work experience

Since 2024, she has served as the President of the European Social and Affective Neuroscience Association (ESCAN) – Special Interest Group Social Neuroscience and as the spokesperson for the Neuroscience section at the Graduate School of Life Sciences (GSLS), JMU. Previously, from 2021 to 2024, she held the position of Vice President of ESCAN. Since 2022, she has been a board member of the China-Competence Center at JMU, and since 2021, she has been an Executive Board and Steering Committee Member of the Research Training Group RTG 2660. Her engagement in the research system extends further, as she has been a board member of ESCAN since 2019 and a member of the mentoring program for young female scientists at UKW, JMU. Additionally, she holds a double affiliation with both the Medical Faculty and the Faculty of Human Science at JMU. Since 2018, she has contributed as a panel member of the Hillary Green Research Fund at the University of Birmingham, a standing member of the dissertation committee at UKW, JMU, and a member of the Degree Subject Committee of the Elite Graduate Program in Translational Neuroscience at JMU. She has also supervised numerous early-career researchers, including Anne Saulin, who completed her PhD in 2023 with magna cum laude and is now a DFG postdoctoral fellow at the University of Birmingham, UK; Marthe Gründahl, who also earned her PhD in 2023 with magna cum laude and is now a consultant at Bain & Company; and Dorothee Bruch, who obtained her MD in 2022 with magna cum laude and is currently practicing as a gynecologist.

She has received several prestigious academic distinctions throughout her career. In 2023, she was honored with an award for her extraordinary contribution to teaching by the Medical Faculty and the President of JMU. In 2015, she was awarded the Heisenberg Fellowship by the German Research Foundation, recognizing her outstanding research achievements. Earlier in her career, she received the Branco-Weiss Fellowship from ETH Zürich in 2008 and the Emmy-Noether Fellowship from the German Research Foundation in 2005, both of which supported her innovative research endeavors.

Publication