Neuroscientist • Musician • Technologist

Arun is a scientist and musician. He is interested in how music becomes meaningful to people. His research combines systems neuroscience, music cognition, and affective science to understand how a predictive brain makes sense of organized sound (music). Specifically, he is interested in how the brain uses music to make predictions about bodily signals, a process called interoception, and how this underlies musical pleasure.

Currently, Arun is pursuing a PhD at Northeastern University in the Music Image and Neural Dynamics lab working with Dr. Psyche Loui. He completed a Bachelor’s of Music in violin performance at the New England Conservatory studying with Prof. Nicholas Kitchen. He has been playing violin for just about two decades. His previous mentors include Magdalena Richter and Anait Arutunian.

As an interdisciplinary researcher, Arun finds himself at the intersection of creative technologies and systems/computational/cognitive/affective neuroscience. His past work investigated how live over recorded music uniquely engages the listening brain. He has worked on health-based applications leveraging rhythms in music to stimulate brain dynamics and promote healthy cognition. His current work uses biofeedback and machine learning techniques to probe musical predictions in naturalistic settings.