G. Gabrielle Starr facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
G. Gabrielle Starr
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Starr in 2023
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| 10th President of Pomona College | |
| Assumed office July 1, 2017 |
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| Preceded by | David W. Oxtoby |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1974 (age 50–51) Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. |
| Spouse | John C. Harpole |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Emory University (BA, MA) University of St Andrews Harvard University (PhD) |
| Profession | Academic |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | The frame of sense: The epistolary novel and the lyric mode in eighteenth-century England (1999) |
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Gina Gabrielle Starr (born in 1974) is an American expert in literature and brain science. She is also a leader in education. She is currently the 10th president of Pomona College. This is a special kind of university called a liberal arts college in Claremont, California.
Dr. Starr is well-known for her studies on old British literature from the 1700s. She also researches how our brains understand beauty, which is called the neuroscience of aesthetics. She has won important awards for her work, like a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Before joining Pomona College, she taught at New York University from 2000 to 2017. In 2017, she made history by becoming the first woman and first African-American president of Pomona College. In 2020, she became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Early Life and Education
Gabrielle Starr grew up in Tallahassee, Florida. She started college at Emory University when she was only 15 years old. There, she earned two degrees in women's studies by 1993.
After Emory, she studied in Scotland at the University of St Andrews. She was a special student there as a Robert T. Jones Scholar. Later, she earned her Ph.D. in English literature from Harvard University in 1999.
Her Career Journey
After finishing her Ph.D., Dr. Starr decided to learn about how the brain works. This field is called cognitive neuroscience. She received a special grant to help her with this new training. She then did advanced research at the California Institute of Technology. There, she learned about different ways to study the brain.
In 2000, she joined the teachers at New York University (NYU). She later became a dean, which is a leader, for the College of Arts and Science at NYU.
While at NYU, Dr. Starr helped start important programs. In 2015, she helped create a program to offer college education in prisons. She also helped start a program called P.O.I.S.E. This program helps students who are good at science and math get support and money to study these subjects at NYU.
In 2016, she was chosen to be the 10th President of Pomona College. She started this role on July 1, 2017. During her time as president, she has guided the college through big challenges. This included the COVID-19 pandemic. She also supports programs that help make sure everyone has a fair chance to get into college.
Her Research Work
Dr. Starr's research is very interesting because it combines many different subjects. She brings together her knowledge of literature, how people experience beauty, psychology, and brain science.
Her book Feeling Beauty explains how our brains react when we experience something beautiful. This book was recognized as an important work in 2014. Her newer book, Just in Time, continues this research. It looks at how our goals and the things we are looking at affect how we experience beauty. It also explores which parts of the brain are involved.
She uses a special brain scanning method called functional magnetic resonance imaging. This helps her understand which parts of the brain are active during aesthetic experiences. Her research shows that a part of the brain called the default mode network is important for how we find things appealing.
She has published many articles in well-known science and literature journals. These include Modern Philology, Neuron, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
