The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation

Where the World's Leading Minds Converge

A university without walls — drawing together Nobel laureates, MacArthur Fellows, and pioneering thinkers from every discipline for unrehearsed intellectual exchange.

Since 2012, The Helix Center has hosted 507 of the world's most distinguished scholars, scientists, artists, and public intellectuals for free interdisciplinary roundtable discussions at the The Marianne & Nicholas Young Auditorium on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Every event is free, open to the public, and archived for the world.

See Upcoming Roundtables Watch Past Discussions

Nobel Laureates

Kahneman, Kandel, Gross & de Duve

National Medals of Science

America's highest scientific honor

MacArthur Fellows

"Genius Grant" recipients

Pulitzer Prizes

In letters, music & journalism

Grammy Awards

Recording Academy honors

National Book Awards

America's premier literary prize

NAS Members

National Academy of Sciences

Guggenheim Fellows

John Simon Guggenheim Foundation

PEN Literary Awards

International writers' organization

And many other distinguished speakers…

Our Mission

A Rare Space for Curiosity, Wonder, and Rigorous Exchange

The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation was founded in 2012 by Dr. Edward Nersessian, a psychoanalyst who observed how narrow specialization and the grant process were constraining creativity at professional scientific meetings. What began as an experiment in "a university without walls" has grown into one of New York City's most distinctive intellectual institutions.

Over 14 seasons, The Helix Center has convened 507 distinguished speakers from 50+ institutions — including Columbia, NYU, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, and University College London — for its signature Theaetetus Table roundtable discussions. These extempore (unscripted) conversations bring five experts from different fields together to explore a single question at the boundaries of human knowledge.

Every event is completely free and open to the public — an act of intellectual generosity made possible by donors who believe in the enduring value of cross-disciplinary inquiry.

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Interdisciplinary by Design

Every roundtable unites voices from multiple fields — 13 disciplines from neuroscience to poetry, physics to psychoanalysis.

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Exceptional Caliber

Our 507 speakers include 4 Nobel laureates, 5 MacArthur Fellows, National Medal of Science recipients, and the most-cited neuroscientist in history.

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Unrehearsed & Authentic

No scripts, no pre-arranged positions. Five scholars sit together and think out loud. The result is genuine intellectual discovery.

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Free & Open to All

Every event — in person or via live stream — is free. Our entire 134+ roundtable archive is freely accessible online.

The Signature Format

The Theaetetus Table

Named for the Platonic dialogue investigating the nature of knowledge, the Theaetetus Table seats five distinguished participants — each a leader in their field — for extempore interdisciplinary conversation. The five symbolize the Platonic solids and the five qualities of mind the Center seeks to cultivate.

Curiosity Tetrahedron

Playfulness Cube

Inspiration Octahedron

Reflection Dodecahedron

Wonder Icosahedron

Distinguished Participants

Featured Speakers

From a community of 507 scholars, scientists, and artists across 50+ leading institutions, these are among our most distinguished participants. Roundtables curated by Dr. Edward Nersessian, Founder & Director

Daniel Kahneman

Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (2002) · Presidential Medal of Freedom

Psychology & Psychoanalysis

Eric Kandel

University Professor, Columbia University

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2000)

Neuroscience & Cognition

Paul J. Steinhardt

Albert Einstein Professor, Princeton University

Dirac Medal (2002) · Buckley Prize (2010)

Physics & Cosmology

Sara Seager

Class of 1941 Professor, MIT

MacArthur Fellow (2013) · Kavli Prize in Astrophysics (2024)

Physics & Cosmology

Rosalind Picard

Professor, MIT Media Lab

National Academy of Engineering · Founded Affective Computing

Technology & Engineering

Karl Friston

Professor, University College London

Most-cited neuroscientist in history (h-index 291) · FRS

Neuroscience & Cognition

György Buzsáki

Biggs Professor, NYU Neuroscience Institute

The Brain Prize (2011) · Gerard Prize (2020)

Neuroscience & Cognition

David Chalmers

University Professor, NYU

Coined 'the hard problem of consciousness' · Guggenheim Fellow

Philosophy & Ethics

Joseph LeDoux

Professor of Neural Science

Karl Spencer Lashley Award, William James

Neuroscience & Cognition

Vijay Iyer

Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor, Harvard

MacArthur Fellow (2013) · Doris Duke Award

Creative & Performing Arts

Jon Chun

Co-Founder, Human-Centered AI Lab & Program, Kenyon College; Lead AI Safety Researcher, NIST AISIC (MLA)

Schmidt Sciences HAVI Grant · NIST AI Safety Institute Consortium · In-Q-Tel portfolio investment ·...

Technology & Engineering

Katherine Elkins

Professor of Humanities & Comparative Literature, Kenyon College; Director, IPHS; Executive Board, The Helix Center

Schmidt Sciences HAVI Grant (PI) · NIST AI Safety Institute · NEH Teaching Professorship · Notre...

Artificial Intelligence & Humanities

View All 507 Speakers →

Watch

Featured Roundtable Discussions

A curated selection from over 134+ archived discussions — every one free to watch.

Medicine and AI — upcoming Helix Center roundtable

Upcoming Event · April 18

Upcoming · April 2026

Medicine and AI

How should clinicians evaluate AI tools trained on millions of patient records? Can algorithmic fairness frameworks prevent health disparities from being encoded into predictive models?

Saturday, April 18, 2026 · 2:30 PM EST · Free admission

Intellectual History · March 2026

Where Have All the Isms Gone?: On the Evolution of Knowledge

How intellectual movements and paradigms have historically organized knowledge — and what has replaced postmodernism and post-structuralism.

Neuroscience · September 2025

Resurgence of Freud

Reconsidering psychoanalytic theory in light of advances in brain biology and psychotropic medication.

Browse Full Archive →

Interdisciplinary Breadth

13 Disciplines, One Conversation

The Helix Center's roundtables bridge every major field of human inquiry — from quantum physics to poetry, from neuroscience to ethics.

Literature & Writing

Yiyun Li, Siri Hustvedt, Percival...

Biology & Medicine

Andrea Califano, Robert Klitzman, Raul...

Neuroscience & Cognition

Eric Kandel, Karl Friston, György...

Philosophy & Ethics

David Chalmers, Michael S. Turner, Joel...

Psychology & Psychoanalysis

Daniel Kahneman, Peter Loewenberg,...

Creative & Performing Arts

Vijay Iyer, Suzanne Anker, John Kress

Social Sciences

Jeffrey Alexander, Liah Greenfeld,...

History & Cultural Studies

Anthony Grafton, David Freedberg,...

Physics & Cosmology

Paul J. Steinhardt, Sara Seager,...

Mathematics & Computer Science

Barry Mazur, Graciela Chichilnisky,...

Other/Interdisciplinary

Carol Mandel, Simon Deng, Tarah Rhoda

Journalism & Media

R. Luke DuBois, Adam Kirsch, David...

Technology & Engineering

Rosalind Picard, Katepalli Sreenivasan,...

Artificial Intelligence & Humanities

Katherine Elkins

A Real & Virtual Intellectual Salon

A Living Archive for Interdisciplinary Enquiry

Part intellectual salon, part open archive — The Helix Center is both a place where ideas are forged in real time and a growing library of over a decade of cross-disciplinary dialogue.

In the tradition of the great European salons and the founding seminars of the Institute for Advanced Study, The Helix Center creates conditions for genuine intellectual surprise — where a neuroscientist's insight reframes a philosopher's question, where a poet's language unlocks a physicist's intuition. Our 134+ archived roundtables form an unparalleled resource for educators, researchers, students, and the intellectually curious public — spanning consciousness, AI and ethics, the nature of creativity, cosmology, memory, beauty, free will, psychoanalysis, mathematics, and far beyond.

Consciousness Artificial Intelligence & Ethics Free Energy Principle Nature of Creativity Theory of Mind Memory & Forgetting Philosophy of Mind Cognitive Modeling Neuroaesthetics Behavioral Economics Free Will & Determinism Literature & Science Psychoanalysis & Neuroscience Cosmology & Physics Decision Science Beauty & Aesthetics Neurodiversity Human-Machine Interaction

Leadership

Board of Directors & Advisory

The Helix Center's leadership draws from the highest levels of academia, medicine, and the arts.

Dr. Edward Nersessian

Founder & Director

Psychoanalyst and clinical professor of psychiatry. Co-founder of the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination. Recipient of the American Psychoanalytic Association's Distinguished Service Award. Author of numerous publications on psychoanalytic theory and interdisciplinary inquiry.

Marianne Young

Board Chair

Philanthropist and longtime supporter of arts and education in New York City. The Helix Center's auditorium — The Marianne & Nicholas Young Auditorium — is named in honor of her family's founding patronage of the institution.

Dr. Mark Solms

Advisory Board

Neuroscientist and psychoanalyst. Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town. Founder of the field of neuropsychoanalysis and director of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society. Editor of the Revised Standard Edition of Freud.

Dr. Jamieson Webster

Advisory Board

Psychoanalyst and clinical associate professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Author of The Life and Death of Psychoanalysis. Contributing writer for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.

View Full Board →

Join Us

Participate in the Conversation

For Prospective Speakers

The Helix Center invites distinguished scholars, scientists, artists, and public intellectuals to participate in our Theaetetus Table roundtables. Our panelists have included 4 Nobel laureates, 5 MacArthur Fellows, National Medal of Science recipients, and leading voices across every discipline.

Unrehearsed, intellectually rigorous conversation with peers from other fields
Professionally produced video recording shared freely with global audiences
A legacy archive joining 507 of the world's leading minds
The intimate setting of the The Marianne & Nicholas Young Auditorium
An engaged live audience and active post-discussion Q&A

For Audiences & Students

All Helix Center events are completely free and open to the public. Whether you attend in person at 247 East 82nd Street or watch our live streams, you'll experience world-class interdisciplinary dialogue unavailable anywhere else.

Attend in person — free, no ticket required (first-come seating)
Watch live streams of every roundtable
Access our complete video archive of 134+ past discussions
Engage in Q&A with panelists after each roundtable
Subscribe for notifications of upcoming events

Next Event

Upcoming Roundtable

Medicine and AI

How is artificial intelligence transforming medicine — from protein language models that predict genomic variant effects to clinical large language models deployed across hospital systems? The panel explores questions of trust, evidence, and equity in AI-driven patient care.

Location: The Marianne & Nicholas Young Auditorium
247 East 82nd Street, New York, NY 10028

Free and open to the public · Live stream available

Learn More

April

2026

Saturday · 2:30 PM

Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Helix Center?

The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2012 in New York City. It hosts free, public interdisciplinary roundtable discussions called "Theaetetus Tables" that bring together five distinguished scholars, scientists, and artists from different fields for unrehearsed intellectual exchange. Over 14 seasons, it has featured 507 speakers from institutions including Columbia, NYU, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and MIT — with participants including Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman, Eric Kandel, David J. Gross, and Christian de Duve, MacArthur Fellows Sara Seager, Vijay Iyer, and Yiyun Li, and National Medal of Science recipients Sylvester James Gates and Barry Mazur.

Are Helix Center events free to attend?

Yes. All Helix Center events are completely free and open to the public. You can attend in person at The Marianne & Nicholas Young Auditorium (247 East 82nd Street, New York, NY 10028) or watch via free live stream. All 134+ past roundtables are archived and freely viewable on the website and YouTube channel.

What is a Theaetetus Table?

The Theaetetus Table is The Helix Center's signature roundtable format, named for the Platonic dialogue investigating the nature of knowledge. Each Table seats five participants — leaders in their respective fields — for extempore (unscripted) interdisciplinary discussion. The five participants symbolize the five Platonic solids and the five qualities of mind the Center cultivates: curiosity, playfulness, inspiration, reflection, and wonder.

Who are some notable speakers who have participated?

The Helix Center's 507 speakers include: Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman (Economics, 2002), Eric Kandel (Medicine, 2000), and David J. Gross (Physics, 2004); MacArthur Fellows Sara Seager (astrophysics), Vijay Iyer (music), and Yiyun Li (literature); National Medal of Science recipients Sylvester James Gates and Barry Mazur; the most-cited neuroscientist in history Karl Friston (h-index 291); philosopher David Chalmers (who coined "the hard problem of consciousness"); affective computing founder Rosalind Picard; The Brain Prize winner György Buzsáki; and Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett.

Who founded The Helix Center and why?

The Helix Center was founded in 2012 by Dr. Edward Nersessian, a psychoanalyst and clinical professor of psychiatry who observed how narrow specialization and the grant process were constraining creativity at professional scientific meetings. He previously co-founded the Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination, then established The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation to create what he calls "a university without walls."

How can I support The Helix Center?

The Helix Center is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit supported entirely by tax-deductible donations. Your contribution supports roundtable curation, professional video production, live-streaming infrastructure, and educational outreach.