Oct 19 - 23, 2026
Los Altos High School
Adam Turnbull
Academic research scientist
Why Does Your Brain Decline as You Age — and Can We Stop It?
Science
Our brains change as we get older — but why do some people stay sharp while others lose their memory, and what can we do about it? This talk looks at how brain imaging and AI are being used to study the aging brain, how the field is changing, and what a career trying to answer these questions actually looks like.
Meet the Speaker:
Adam Turnbull, PhD, is a cognitive neuroscientist at Stanford University. He studies how the brain changes as people age, and why some people keep their memory and thinking skills sharp while others begin to struggle. To investigate this, he uses neuroimaging — techniques like MRI that let scientists measure the structure and activity of the living human brain — alongside measures of body signals such as heart rate, and artificial intelligence to find patterns in the data. His research aims to understand what keeps the brain resilient and to help develop ways to protect brain health as we get older. He earned his PhD in cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging from the University of York in the UK, and now works in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. He enjoys sharing brain science with students and the public.