Ratatouille
Introduced by Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Juan Ignacio Sanguinetti Scheck.
Brad Bird’s Academy Award-winning film (Best Animated Feature) introduced audiences to the charming rat Remy, who dreams of becoming a great chef. Before the film, neuroscientist Juan Ignacio Sanguinetti will clue us in as to what is really going on in the minds of rats.
About the Film
Remy dreams of becoming a great chef, despite being a rat in a definitely rodent-phobic profession. He moves to Paris to follow his dream, and with the help of hapless garbage boy Linguini, he puts his culinary skills to the test in the kitchen. However, he must stay in hiding while cooking, which yields hilarious consequences. Remy eventually gets the chance to prove his culinary abilities to a great food critic—but is the food good?
About the Speaker
Dr. Juan Ignacio Sanguinetti Scheck (Nacho) is a neuroscientist interested in the close-knit relationship between the brain and behavior. As a former neuroethologist, he believes we should study animal brains performing natural behaviors, and that we should strive to do it in an environment as close as possible to the animal's own ecology. Nacho received his B.S. in biochemistry in 2009 from the Universidad de la República in Uruguay, his home country. In 2013, he moved to Berlin to pursue his Ph.D. in the Brecht Lab in Humboldt University, where he studied the neural bases of navigation and play behavior. He spent his final doctoral years studying the brains of rats playing hide-and-seek with humans. He finished his Ph.D. in 2019 and joined Harvard University’s Hoekstra and Uchida Labs to perform comparative neurophysiology and behavior of deer mice. Nacho moonlights as a theater and improv performer, writer, and producer.
