Shades of Blue

What we see isn’t always what we perceive. Our experience of color is shaped by the way our brains interpret light, the biology of our visual systems and the language, culture and history through which we make sense of the world.

Eero Simoncelli, director of the Center for Computational Neuroscience at the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute, investigates how the brain represents and interprets visual information. Marco Leona, the David H. Koch Scientist in Charge at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, leads a team that uses scientific methods to investigate the materials and techniques used in works of art, uncovering stories about their creators and the moments in time that influenced them.

Join them as they sit down with Samir Patel, editor-in-chief at Quanta Magazine, and Sandhya Jain-Patel, an arts appraiser and advisor, for a conversation all about blue — from the workings of the brain to the centuries of human creativity and innovation.

Simoncelli is the inaugural director of the Center for Computational Neuroscience at the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics in 1984 from Harvard University, studied applied mathematics at Cambridge University and then received his master’s degree in 1988 and his Ph.D. in 1993, both in electrical engineering, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was an assistant professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania from 1993 until 1996 before moving to New York University in September 1996, where he is currently a Silver Professor of Neural Science, Mathematics, Data Science and Psychology. His research interests span a wide range of topics in the representation and analysis of visual images and sounds in both machine and biological vision systems.

Leona and his team investigate the complexity of works of art through the scientific study of the materials and techniques employed by artists of every culture and time. Through their work, they tell stories about art, its context and the people who make it, highlighting cultural practices, economic and social relationships, technical developments, spiritual insights, or the imminent vulnerability of the objects themselves. Leona studied chemistry at Italy’s University of Pavia, where he also earned a Ph.D. in crystallography and mineralogy.

Patel is a science journalist, photographer and editor based in Brooklyn. He is currently editor-in-chief at Quanta Magazine, and before that, he held leadership positions at Atlas Obscura and Archaeology Magazine. His work has also appeared in Nature, The New York Times, Discover and Outside, among others. He has reported from six continents and covered a wide range of topics, including archaeology, climate change, art conservation, neuroscience, chemistry, wildlife biology, business, crime, social justice and more. Patel is an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School and an accomplished editor of art publications.

Jain-Patel has over 20 years of experience in the care, collection and valuation of fine art. She is a former Fulbright Scholar to India and previously led the Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian Art Department at Christie’s New York. As a trained art conservator and research scientist, she has held positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — where she first met Marco Leona — and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Leona now works. She is also an author, having contributed to the Wall Street Journal bestseller Beyond Diversity, and is currently revising her Masala Romantasy trilogy. She sends regular missives from her newsletter, “Jain of All Trades,” and co-hosts the podcast Future Bestselling Author.