Moran Cerf (Hebrew: מורן סרף; born 1977) is an American-French-Israeli neuroscientist, professor of business (at Columbia University), investor and former white hat hacker.

As a young child, Cerf became an avid programmer and was part of a small community of hackers that paved the road to online white hat hacking.

While pursuing his studies, Cerf worked as a white hat hacker in the emerging Israeli cybersecurity industry,[20] performing penetration tests for banks and government institutes.

He attributes much of his understanding of the brain and the way he researches to his time spent breaking codes and performing penetration tests.

A single meeting with the late Francis Crick where the two discussed the importance of "using hacking skills to study the most interesting vault in the world – our brain" made Prof. Cerf leave his senior business post and pursue full-time PhD at Caltech, under Prof. Christof Koch.

[22] Following his time at Caltech Professor Cerf moved to NYU, where he spent three years studying what makes content engaging and looking for ways to translate his neuroscience research to a broader audience.

It is the time there that he attributes to his interest in finding ways to understand how to translate brain research to applications and the need to work together with the business world to communicate science.

[47] Prior to his academic career, Cerf held positions in pharmaceutical, telecommunications, fashion, software development, and innovative research fields.

Cerf spent nearly a decade working as a computer system hacker, breaking into financial and government institutes to test and improve their security.

[51][19][52] In an interview with Forbes, Professor Cerf attributed his success as a neuroscientist to his hacking background, saying the non-traditional tools he uses to investigate the brain and his creative way of thinking about black boxes borrows from his time breaking codes.

[53][54] He is an associate editor for several scholarly journals in both business and neuroscience and a consultant for companies in many industries, including automotive (Ferrari), performance (Red Bull), finance (TransUnion), and relationships (Tinder).

[57][10] He also organizes the annual Sloan seminar, where he has held public discussions on science communication with Hollywood figures like Ann Druyan (Cosmos),[58] Michelle Ashford (Masters of Sex), Whitney Cummings (Whitney, 2 Broke Girls),[59] Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad),[60] Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko),[61] Len Mlodinow (ghost writer of Stephen Hawking's books and writer on MacGyver), Andy Serkis[62] (King Kong, Gollum in Lord of the Rings), Michael Begler and Jack Amiel (The Knick), Clifford Johnson (theoretical physicist) and more.