Dr. Michel (Michael) Telias, Scientist
Dr. Telias was born in 1980 in Uruguay and moved to Israel in 2000. He obtained a B.Sc. in Bio-Medicine and a M.Sc. in Medical Neurobiology from the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed his Ph.D. thesis (“Modeling Fragile X Syndrome using human embryonic stem cells”) at the Tel-Aviv Medical Center, the Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, where he researches the molecular and cellular mechanisms behind retinal physiology in health and blindness.
Dr. Telias is the author of several top-ranked original scientific research articles, published in international scientific journals, such as Developmental Biology, Stem Cells & Development, Journal of Neuroscience and Neuron, among others (PubMed-indexed). He also serves as a reviewer and guest editor for the European-based scientific publishing house Frontiers, which supports an open-access approach to scientific publishing. He has contributed to scientific books and blogs, and is the recipient of five different scientific awards for his PhD dissertation, among them the prestigious TEVA National Network of Excellence in Neuroscience scholarship.
Since an early age, Dr. Telias has been fascinated not only by science itself, but also by the idea of popularizing science for the benefit of human kind. The pioneer of this idea, the American scientist Carl Sagan and his show “Cosmos”, inspired him to become a teacher and a lecturer in science and popular science for kids and teenagers, as well as for the general public. For more than 10 years, Dr. Telias created, developed and delivered hundreds of lectures and courses in a wide range of scientific topics, from Neuroscience to Astrophysics. While a student at the Hebrew University, he developed a very successful series of cinema-science meetings and discussions, during which the general public was invited to watch sci-fi movies and then attend lectures and panels discussing the science behind the movie. As a graduate student in Tel-Aviv, he created a unique collaboration with the local Planetarium, to begin the first ever popular Astrobiology course.
For more than 2 years he had a weekly commentary in Israel’s Reshet Bet radio, in which he described the latest advances in biomedicine around the globe.
More recently, he has begun writing and producing content in the field of skepticism, especially in the field of “alternative” medicine, and the real dangers of scientific illiteracy associated with ill medical advice (for example, a recent paper published in Skeptic Magazine). Together with Tzachi Schiff, he develops youtube-oriented short videos aimed at closing the gap between scientists and the general public. He is also the author of a short-stories book in the field of sci-fi and horror, in Spanish.
Dr. Michael Telias – personal website:
http://micheltelias.wixsite.com/mtelias
Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/mtelias
“Haya Bainternet” (with Tzachi Schiff): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCycMzPzu4uBdjXxW4MDhVow
“Tiempos de Antifaz” (Amazon):
https://www.amazon.com/Tiempos-Antifaz-Spanish-Michel-Telias-ebook/dp/B00AN629KU