Podcast #4 – Ian Cameron – Problems of the academic system

Our guest today is Dr. Ian Cameron. Ian works at the exciting interface between academia, entrepreneurship, industry and society. He is driven towards the societal applications from neuroscience and psychological research, and brings management and entrepreneurial practices to academia.

He holds an MBA, where he wrote his management thesis about the alignment of culture, structure and strategy to achieve societal impact from research.

Before getting his MBA, he earned his PhD from Queen’s University, in Canada and did a postdoc at UC Berkeley. Both involved human neuroimaging and behavioural studies. 

Specifically, Ian specializes in cognition and sensory-motor control in movement disorders, making use of functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI), functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), and eye tracking techniques. 

As a researcher, he is interested in big-picture questions that connect neuroscience discoveries to clinical and societal applications. 

In this conversation we talk about the academic experience. We discuss various aspects, going from the ‘standard’ career path, to the transfer of knowledge into society, and all the way to the relationship of academia and industry. We try to discuss problems within the system and how business practices could potentially offer a fix.

Show Notes

Reach out to Ian Cameron at:

Twitter: @ian_gm_cameron

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/iangmcameron

Books / Articles:

Eric Reiss – The lean startup

Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg – How Google Works

Cameron & Quinn – The competing values framework