--- title: Kevin J. Mitchell | TIME description: Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He studies the interplay between genes, brains, and minds. He is the author of Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are and Free Agents:How Evolution Gave Us Free Will canonical: https://time.com/author/kevin-j-mitchell/ og:title: TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:url: https://time.com/author/kevin-j-mitchell/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 300 og:image:height: 300 og:image:alt: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. og:type: profile twitter:card: summary twitter:title: TIME | Current & Breaking News | National & World Updates twitter:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Kevin J. Mitchell ## Kevin J. Mitchell [Mitchell](https://www.kjmitchell.com/) is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He studies the interplay between genes, brains, and minds. He is the author of [_Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are_](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691173887/innate) and [_Free Agents:How Evolution Gave Us Free Will_](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691226231/free-agents) ## Kevin J. Mitchell *  Dec 21, 2023 ### [Column: The One Thing Our Brains Rely on to Generate New Ideas](https://time.com/6549514/brain-randomness-creativity-essay/) Kevin Mitchell explores how our brains rely on a little bit of randomness to help us think outside o... [IDEAS](/section/ideas/) Meta: null ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","@id":"https://time.com/","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/","name":"Home"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/author/kevin-j-mitchell/","name":"Kevin J. Mitchell"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Person","@id":"https://time.com/author/kevin-j-mitchell/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/author/kevin-j-mitchell/"},"name":"Kevin J. Mitchell","jobTitle":null,"description":"Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He studies the interplay between genes, brains, and minds. He is the author of Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are and Free Agents:How Evolution Gave Us Free Will","url":"https://time.com/author/kevin-j-mitchell/","worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/"}}] ```