Nina Kraus

Nina Kraus is a professor at Northwestern University, investigating the neural encoding of speech and music and its plasticity where she is the Hugh S. Knowles Chair.^[1]

Her Auditory Neuroscience Lab, also known as Brainvolts, examines the biological processing of sound throughout the life span, how it is disrupted in clinical populations (language disorders; concussion), and how it reacts to differing levels of expertise (music; bilingualism). Her work has shown that the hearing brain is vast—engaging our cognitive, sensory, motor, and reward networks. This perspective is illustrated in her book Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World.^[2] Investigations are aimed at improving human communication. Kraus’ work is rooted in a desire to bring scientific understanding into educational and clinical settings.