Narayan Sankaran

Narayan Sankaran, PhD, is both a neuroscientist and neuroethicist. As a neuroscientist, his research seeks a mechanistic account of how the human auditory system enables perception of complex sounds – such as music and speech. To do this, he combines computational modeling, machine learning, and human neurophysiological measurements at different spatial scales using both intracranial and scalp-based recording techniques. As a neuroethicist, his research considers the ethical and societal implications of emerging neurotechnologies like brain-computer interfaces that decode information from users' brain activity.

Dr. Sankaran joins the Neuroscience Department following two postdoctoral fellowships in the Department of Neurological Surgery at UCSF and the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public at UC Berkeley. His research has been published in numerous journals, including Science Advances, the Journal of Neuroscience, and the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. His complete CV can be accessed via the link located on this page.

• Auditory neuroscience
• Computational modeling
• Music
• Human electrophysiology

• Music and speech encoding
• Auditory cortex
• Brain-computer interfaces
• Neuroethics

• University of Sydney, PhD in Neuroscience, 2018
• University of California, Berkeley, BA in Physics (Music minor)

• Postdoctoral Fellow in Neuroscience, University of California San Francisco
• Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, University of California Berkeley
• Lecturer in Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley

• Civic Science Fellowship, Rita Allen Foundation, 2024
• Berkelhammer Postdoctoral Award, University of California San Francisco, 2020
• University of Sydney Postgraduate Research Award, 2014

• Narayan Sankaran, Matthew Leonard, Frederic Theunissen, & Edward Chang (2024). Encoding of melody in the human auditory cortex. Science Advances. 10, eadk0010. 

• Narayan Sankaran, David Moses, Winston Chiong, and Edward Chang (2023). Recommendations for promoting user agency in the design of speech neuroprostheses. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 17: 1298129

• Narayan Sankaran, Thomas Carlson, & William Forde Thompson (2020). The rapid emergence of musical pitch structure in human cortex. Journal of Neuroscience.

• Narayan Sankaran, William Forde Thompson, Simon Carlile, & Thomas Carlson (2018). Decoding the dynamic representation of musical pitch from human brain activity. Scientific Reports. 

• Narayan Sankaran, Jayaganesh Swaminathan, Christophe Micheyl, Sridhar Kalluri, & Simon Carlile (2018). Tracking the dynamic representation of consonants from auditory periphery to cortex. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.