Assistant Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology
Northeast Ohio Medical University
My love of the outdoors and nature evolved into an interest in how living things make their way in the world and have evolved. My undergraduate work was at a small liberal arts college in Colorado, where I received a degree in general biology. As a graduate student in Washington, I focused on the most complicated of living things—the brain. There I began using electrophysiological techniques. These methods have revolutionized our understanding of neurons and allow us to observe the tiny electrical signals they use to communicate with each other. I continued to use these methods, as well as microscopy techniques, in my postdoctoral work in Texas, where I began to study the auditory system. I find this system particularly fascinating because, unlike the visual system's retina, our peripheral auditory senses have no intrinsic representation of space. The location of sound sources must be computed in the central auditory system from basic frequency, timing, and intensity information.
