Christine Herman


Side effects public media

Christine Herman is a Ph.D. chemist turned audio journalist. Her reporting has received awards from the Illinois Associated Press Broadcasters Association and has aired on national programs including All Things Considered and Here & Now. Christine is a mother of three and aspiring aerial artist. She’s a recipient of the 2018-2019 Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism and has been working at Illinois Public Media since 2015.

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Illustration of a bridge shaped like minds.

Commentary: Citation graphs may underestimate neuroscience’s influence on AI

An alternative, albeit less quantitative, way to trace this history is through the people who carried ideas between the fields.

By Anthony Zador
26 October 2026 | 5 min read
Illustration of a person, shown from the torso down, walking over a bridge shaped like minds.

Commentary: The rising absolute number of neuro-inspired AI papers represents a substantial footprint

Many of the design choices present in the current generation of artificial-intelligence tools parallel purported properties of the brain.

By Kim Stachenfeld
26 October 2026 | 2 min read
Illustration of a person walking over a bridge shaped like minds.

Examining the bridge between neuroscience and AI

A citation analysis reveals that the connection between the two fields is real and gaining momentum. But it’s also narrow and tool-heavy; we need to find ways to widen it.

By Renato Duarte
26 October 2026 | 12 min read