I am fascinated by how the brain converts sound into meaning, and how this is critically dependent on a person’s current state and history. My research focus is in the area of auditory cognition – understanding how the brain makes sense of sound – from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. Using psychophysics and neuroimaging (EEG, ECoG, fMRI) I study how the auditory system forms perceptual representations and the factors that contribute to their formation, including learning, memory, and attention, under normal conditions and also when they are disordered (e.g., hearing loss, cochlear implants, misophonia, and tinnitus). The study of tinnitus – ringing in the ears – provides a unique opportunity to understand how we hear sound; by investigating the presence of a phantom auditory percept we can gain insight into how sound is coded in the brain. In addition to investigating the brain bases of sound processing I place a strong emphasis on translating basic scientific findings into benefit for patients. In the case of tinnitus, neuroscience will provide the knowledge that leads to an effective treatment for a condition that affects 10-15% of the adult population.