He is the founder and Director of Future Minds Lab (UNSW), a multidisciplinary agile Cognitive Neuroscience research group that does fundamental research, consults with companies, artists and designers on brain science - a world first, hands on human-centered research lab working on the Psychology and Neuroscience of innovation and entrepreneurship, the future of work, human and AI interactions, applying nudges for good, mental health of company founders, Pearson also heads up MindX a boutique company that was spun out of the lab in 2016 to apply psychology and cognitive neuroscience to the world of advertising and marketing. Joel started his career studying art and filmmaking at one of Australia’s top fine arts school, Collage of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. However, he then decided to apply his creative discovery techniques to the scientific mysteries of human consciousness and the complexities of brain. He completed his science PhD in 2 years, while fitting in several around the world trips and invited conference and university talks, alongside several publications. An internationally recognised leader in human consciousness research, Pearson’s group takes an innovative, agile, first principles approach to developing new methods to measure dimensions of human experience previously thought to be immeasurable. A few examples are the group’s novel methods to measure the human imagination, intuition and hallucinations, using objective, reliable, neuroscientific methods. This work spans from fundamental science to helping individuals in the clinic – translational cognitive neuroscience.