115. Interview with neuroscientist and author Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston

Episode 7 of the Let's Talk SciComm podcast, hosted by Unimelb SciComm, titled "115. Interview with neuroscientist and author Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston" was published on October 13, 2025 and runs 33 minutes.

October 13, 2025 ·33m · Let's Talk SciComm

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Summary

This week we have the great pleasure of speaking with Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, a neuroscientist based in Melbourne, Australia, and the author of The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death. Ariel is currently a Research Fellow at Monash University - working with the Monash Neuroscience of Consciousness laboratory - where he investigates novel methods for characterising the nature of conscious experiences to aid in the ongoing quest to understand the neural basis of consciousness. Before that, Ariel obtained his PhD from The University of Melbourne in 2019, where he researched the mechanisms by which genetic and environmental factors affect cognition in healthy and diseased brains. He has published widely across the field of cognitive neuroscience, from the decline, preservation and rescue of cognitive function at different stages of the lifespan, through to characterising people's conscious experience of colour.As an author, Ariel describes how recent neuroscientific advances may enable the suspension of death through brain preservation, potentially offering the dying the chance of future revival (while also exploring the medical, neuroscientific, and philosophical background required to understand this seemingly absurd claim).You can find out more about Ariel and his work here: https://www.arielzj.com/ https://www.arielzj.com/the-future-loves-you https://preservinghope.substack.com/ https://x.com/ariel_zjhttps://bsky.app/profile/arielzj.bsky.social https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=kREqIeKKQMgCYou can watch the interview between Ariel and Jen at The Wheeler Centre here: https://www.wheelercentre.com/news-stories/2025/watch-how-to-live-forever Subscribe to our podcast newsletter, The ChitChat: https://letstalkscicomm.my.canva.siteTranscript: https://go.unimelb.edu.au/5b62

Episode Description

Ariel is currently a Research Fellow at Monash University - working with the Monash Neuroscience of Consciousness laboratory - where he investigates novel methods for characterising the nature of conscious experiences to aid in the ongoing quest to understand the neural basis of consciousness. Before that, Ariel obtained his PhD from The University of Melbourne in 2019, where he researched the mechanisms by which genetic and environmental factors affect cognition in healthy and diseased brains. He has published widely across the field of cognitive neuroscience, from the decline, preservation and rescue of cognitive function at different stages of the lifespan, through to characterising people's conscious experience of colour.

As an author, Ariel describes how recent neuroscientific advances may enable the suspension of death through brain preservation, potentially offering the dying the chance of future revival (while also exploring the medical, neuroscientific, and philosophical background required to understand this seemingly absurd claim).

You can find out more about Ariel and his work here: