PhD Research

I’m a PhD candidate in the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. I’m primarily interested in using comparative work (especially with birds) to study the evolution of human language and cognition. My PhD research involves using both behavioral and neurophysiological techniques to examine how songbirds and parrots listen to sequences of sounds and the acoustic features of individual elements. Animal minds can do amazing things but only we seem to have language — I want to know why and how.