Current Members

Principal Investigator

Assal Habibi is an Associate Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Center for Music, Brain, and Society at the University of Southern California. Her interdisciplinary research explores the impact of the arts, with a particular focus on music, on health and human development. She investigates how innate biological factors and experiential learning shape the development of cognitive, emotional, and social abilities across the lifespan. She has been a principal investigator on several innovative studies, including projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). An expert in electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods, her work extensively employs longitudinal and cross-sectional models to examine the effects of integrating music-based activities into school curricula and elder care, especially for those from underserved communities. Her research not only highlights the essential role of the arts in education but also explores the therapeutic potential of music for individuals across different age groups, including the elderly.

Co-Investigator

Beatriz Ilari is Associate Professor of Music Education at the University of Southern California where she teaches graduate courses in music psychology, the sociology of music education, music in childhood, and research methods. She has conducted extensive research with babies, preschoolers, and school-aged children from the U.S., Brazil, Canada, Japan, and Mexico. In her work, she uses a variety of approaches to study different aspects of musical development and growth of infants, children, and adolescents. Her research is interdisciplinary in nature. Beatriz collaborates with scholars from diverse fields, including neuroscientists from USC Brain & Creativity Institute, and psychologists and educators from the Advancing Interdisciplinary Research in Singing (AIRS) team. She is currently the editor for Perspectives: Journal of the Early Childhood Music & Movement and Association (ECMMA), and also serves on the editorial boards of prestigious journals including Psychology of Music, Musicae Scientiae, and Music & Science.

Director, Dornsife Neuroimaging Center

Hanna Damasio M.D. is University Professor, Dana Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center at the University of Southern California. Using computerized tomography and magnetic resonance scanning, she has developed methods of investigating human brain structure and studied functions such as language, memory and emotion, using both the lesion method and functional neuroimaging.Besides numerous scientific articles (her Web of Knowledge H Index is 74; over 25,000 citations) she is the author of the award-winning Lesion Analysis in Neuropsychology (Oxford University Press), and of Human Brain Anatomy in Computerized Images (also Oxford University Press), the first brain atlas based on computerized imaging data, now in its second edition.

Director, Brain & Creativity Institute

Antonio Damasio is University Professor, David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Professor of Psychology, Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California; he is also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. Damasio has made seminal contributions to the understanding of brain processes underlying, emotions, feelings, decision-making and consciousness. He is the author of numerous scientific articles (his Google scholar H Index is 144; over 129,000 citations) and his research has received continuous Federal funding for 30 years. He is the recipient of many awards (including the Grawemeyer Award, 2014; the Honda Prize, 2010; the Asturias Prize in Science and Technology, 2005; and the Signoret Prize, 2004, which he shared with his wife Hanna Damasio).

Kevin Jamey is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC, working with Dr. Assal Habibi. His research focuses on music-based interventions to support cognitive development in children. He completed his PhD in Psychology at BRAMS (Université de Montréal) with Dr. Simone Dalla Bella, where he adapted a rhythmic tablet app (Rhythm Workers) to help improve sensorimotor and executive skills in children with neurodevelopmental disorders (autism, ADHD & stuttering). He is currently studying the long-term effects of music training in children, examining both behavioral outcomes and brain plasticity. Outside the lab, Kevin is also a singer-songwriter and producer, blending science and art to explore emotion and movement through music creation.

Nick is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Assal Habibi’s lab. He received his BA in Music and Psychology at Columbia University and PhD in Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience at Northeastern University. His dissertation investigated age-related differences in learning, liking, and neural correlates of music listening across the early lifespan. His current research interests include using music to understand auditory learning and affective development across the early lifespan, with an interest in promoting well-being in kids and teens. As an East Coast transplant, Nick is open to suggestions for what he should do in his free time.

Ellen Herschel is a Lecturer in the Psychology Department and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. Her research investigates the impact of shared musical and artistic experiences on belonging, health, and wellbeing across the lifespan. She investigates this from a social and neural perspective utilizing surveys, behavioral measures, neuroimaging (e.g. fMRI, EEG), and neurophysiology in longitudinal RCTs. Her first line of research aims to understand the impact of joint musical synchrony on ingroup-outgroup bias, pro-sociality, and belonging. Her second line of research investigates the impact of musical training and music listening on health, wellbeing, and speech in noise perception of older adults with and without cognitive decline utilizing behavioral measures, neurophysiology, and EEG. Additional projects and investigate longitudinal arts programming on cognitive and emotional development of low SES youth. She teaches courses on The Neuroscience of Creativity and Arts, Health, and Cognition. She runs the Center for Music Brain and Society’s Summer High School Research Program and is the Center’s Associate Director of Learning and Education Initiatives.

Colin graduated from UCLA in 2015 with a BS in Cognitive Science and has since worked as a research assistant at UCLA and Stanford. Colin has been playing music since he was 2 years old and was a member of the 2010-11 Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet, a fellowship program founded by Dave Brubeck. As a current graduate student Colin plans to combine his interests in music and neuroscience, as well as engage in research on other aspects of cognition. In his free time Colin enjoys movies, producing music, and listening to audiobooks.

Jed graduated from Carleton College in 2022 with a BA in Cognitive Science and a minor in Music. As an undergraduate, his research investigated childhood expertise and listening effort. Joining the Brain & Music Lab in 2022 as a post-baccaleaureate fellow, continued his research on entrainment and groove while also exploring other dimensions of music cognition in child development. In the Fall of 2024, Jed joins the lab as PhD Student.  Jed’s free time is spent playing Pokémon Go, watching soccer, and listening to Porter Robinson.

Vani is a doctoral student with the Brain and Creativity Institute studying how music training affects developmental and educational outcomes. She hopes to utilize mobile technologies and naturalistic stimuli to push the boundaries for how these complex cognitive processes are studied, and to prioritize the study of diverse global music traditions and underrepresented communities. These interests are a confluence of prior research experience studying musical improvisation with the UCSF Sound and Music Perception Lab and topics in educational neuroscience with the Stanford Educational Neuroscience Initiative. Vani is also a lifelong musician and DJ, stimulating the brain and body and activating audiences worldwide with global music.

Research Coordinator, Music Training and Child Development, Opera Study

Caitlin has worked with the Brain and Music Lab since 2021. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California, where she also minored in Songwriting. She is a classically-trained pianist and a strong advocate for the power of music and creativity in health & well-being. In her free time, you can find her outside, painting, and making music.

Research Coordinator, EVIDENT-MAP, SENTINAL

I graduated from USC with a B.A. in Cognitive Science in 2023. I joined the Brain & Music Lab as a research assistant in January 2024 and was hired as a study coordinator in May 2024. I have coordinated and collected data for our Precog and Aging Minds projects. I intend to apply for my PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience for Fall 2027, and have a diverse range of research interests including empathy and social connection, language, and religious beliefs and experiences. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, lifting weights, cooking, and playing tabletop games.

Lab Manager, Research Coordinator, Music Training and Child Development, Opera Study

Melissa joined the Brain and Music Lab in 2024. She has a Masters of Science in Communication Data Science from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Arts in Cognitive Science and Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley. In her spare time she enjoys reading and exploring the intersection of data and design.

Research Coordinator, SENTINAL

Nikko graduated in 2026 from UCLA with a BA in psychology. In his time there, he worked in a lab that studied how heart rate variability modulated brain networks in patients with schizophrenia. He now looks to apply skills he used there to his new position as Research Coordinator for the SENTINEL lab. SENTINEL aims to see if there multimodal physiological biomarkers for depression and suicidal ideation through the analysis of both in-lab and real world data. Nikko is passionate about research in mental health, as he looks to make a career out of it. He is very excited to be involved in the work being done here.

Research Coordinator, SENTINAL

Jessica graduated in 2026 from UCLA with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Disability Studies. In her time there, Jessica served as Senior Research Assistant for the Wilson Motor Lab and thinkSMART, studying identification and interventions for autism and executive functioning weaknesses. Jessica was also an Undergraduate Research Trainee for the University of California Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities Fellowship. Now, Jessica is more than thrilled to join the Brain and Creativity Institute as a Research Coordinator for the SENTINEL study. SENTINEL’s primary objective is to develop multimodal biomarkers capable of identifying and tracking trajectories associated with mental health risks. Jessica is passionate about early evidence-based interventions for mental health with the goal of developing and implementing more in the community. She is honored to be part of this project!

Research Coordinator, Choir Study

Giancarlo Arzu graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 2018 with a BFA in Jazz Bass Performance and minors in Digital Arts and Music Theory. After graduating, he worked in arts education and administration across Los Angeles, bringing music programming to underserved communities and supporting students during the COVID-19 pandemic. His work in social-emotional learning sparked an interest in research, leading him to complete post-baccalaureate studies in psychology at UC Irvine in 2022.

Giancarlo subsequently joined Dr. Susanne Jaeggi’s Working Memory and Plasticity Lab, studying cognitive interventions in older adults. He later moved to Boston to join the Brain Game Center, co-directed by Drs. Aaron Seitz and Susanne Jaeggi, where his research focused on developing guided music-listening interventions to improve speech comprehension in older adults. He is excited to bring his background in music, education, and cognitive research to the USC Brain & Music Lab.