Laura J. Snyder

Laura J. Snyder is a historian and biographer now writing the biography of neurologist Oliver Sacks, for which she received a Public Scholars grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities and was chosen as the first Sloan/Leon Levy Fellow in Scientific Biography. Her book "Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek and the Reinvention of Seeing," debunked views about Vermeer’s work incorrect and inconsistent with how he and other painters worked in the 1600s. The auction house Christie’s named it a 2015 Best Art Book. New Scientist called it a 2015 Best Read. Snyder’s other books are "The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends who Transformed Science and Changed the World," which was a Scientific American Notable Book, and "Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society." Snyder's writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Science, Harvard Magazine, and elsewhere. Her TED Talk on the Philosophical Breakfast Club has been viewed over 1.3 million times