Steven Pinker is a professor of psychology at ;Harvard University and one of the world’s leading authorities on language and the mind. Initially focusing his work on experimental psychology and language acquisition in children, Pinker eventually turned his attention to language and politics, the neural basis of consciousness, and the decline in violence worldwide over the past several decades. He explored these topics in his most recent book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” Pinker has been named one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Intellectuals” and one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.”