Christof Koch was born in the American Midwest, grew up in Holland, Germany, Canada, and Morocco. He studied Physics and Philosophy at the University of Tübingen in Germany and was awarded his Ph.D. in Biophysics in 1982. After 4 years at MIT, he joined the California Institute of Technology, where he is the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology. In 2011, he became the Chief Scientific Officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, planning for a ten year, large-scale, high through-put effort to understand the visual system of the mouse, with a focus on untangling the circuitry of it's cerebral cortex. He loves dogs, Apple Computers, rock and mountain climbing, biking and long-distance running.His laboratory studies the biophysics of nerve cells, and the neuronal and computational basis of visual perception, attention, and consciousness and machine vision. Together with his long-time collaborator, Francis Crick, Koch pioneered the scientific study of consciousness. His latest book, Consciousness - Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist deals with the philosophical, religious, scientific, technological and personal questions relating to his research.