Rebecca Saxe, an associate member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and associate professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, has been named one of the World Economic Forum‘s Young Global Leaders for 2012.
Each year, the Swiss forum recognizes up to 200 exceptional young leaders under the age of 40 for their “professional accomplishments, commitment to society, and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.” Past winners have included Larry Page, co-founder and CEO of Google; David Cameron, prime minister of the United Kingdom; and Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook.
Drawn from a pool of several thousand candidates, Saxe was one of 192 Global Young Leaders from 59 countries named to the prestigious list this year. Saxe is a prominent expert on human social cognition. She is best known for her work on a human brain region that is specialized for “theory-of-mind” tasks that involve understanding the mental states of other people.