I currently serve as the Director of the Neuroscience Initiative at UC Merced. I am in the process of helping with the establishment of the Center for Interdisciplinary Neuroscience and the establishment of a Major in Neuroscience.
As for my research program, I examine how the human brain uses multisensory information to enhance comprehension of spoken language—how multisensory neural networks develop, adapt in noisy situations, and reorganize due to hearing loss and following hearing restoration (following cochlear implantation). Multisensory integration is especially useful in noisy situations and for individuals with hearing loss. T
o help gauge the brain mechanisms, I use behavioral measures combined with several imaging techniques (electroencephalography, or EEG, functional Infrared Spectroscopy or fNIRS, and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging or fMRI) to record brain activity while individuals process sounds and images.
