Alexandra Horowitz

Professor of Psychology, Barnard College

Dr. Alexandra Horowitz is a researcher and professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches seminars in canine cognition, creative nonfiction writing, and audio storytelling. As Senior Research Fellow, she heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard, studying the behavior and mind of owned dogs. She has long been interested in understanding the umwelt of another animal, and her research and writing is aimed to answer the question of what it is like to be a dog. She has written four books, including Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, a New York Times bestseller, Being a Dog: Following the Dog into a World of Smell, and, most recently, Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond. She earned her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego, and her Bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Photo by Vegar Abelnes

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Jan 30th
2021
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The Many Minds of Memory

Memory is not a dusty cellar, open treasure chest, or sealed pandora’s box. It is a dynamic process, a stream of renditions and reflections. It conveys to us not what strictly happened, but embeds us in a retained internal moment, in an external encounter, or an imprint from another’s story. Memory re-enforces, revises, re-edits, and re-interprets... read more! »