Our sensory systems translate physical stimuli into subjectively salient information. The salience of sensory stimuli is influenced by evolution/natural selection, development, physiological states, social context etc. I am interested in finding out how these factors individually and collectively influence auditory coding and behavioral salience of certain sounds. We use songbirds as our model system for studying these issues because they rely on learned songs to communicate

As part of the Communication Neuroscience laboratory of Prof. Sarah Woolley, I will be working on a number of projects investigating developmental, experiential and physiological influences on song processing in songbirds. I will be using behavioral, histological and electrophysiological techniques to investigate how these factors influence the sensory coding of songs in both males that sing and females that do not sing but do recognize individual songs and do choose mates based on their songs.