Daniel Levitin

Dr. Daniel Levitin is a dean at Minerva Schools in San Francisco, neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, and a musician. Daniel’s research is mostly focused on pattern processing in the brain.

He published three books: The World in Six Songs, This Is Your Brain on Music, and the recent The Organized Mind, and shortly after release they all became bestsellers. A polymath at heart, he has performed with top musicians and holds a few gold and platinum records.

Levitin earned his B.A. in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science at Stanford University. After that he went on to pursue his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Oregon, researching complex auditory patterns and pattern processing in expert and non-expert populations. He completed post-doctoral training at Stanford University Medical School (in Neuroimaging) and at UC Berkeley (in Cognitive Psychology).

He taught at Stanford University in various departments, as the Department of Computer Science, the Program in Human-Computer Interaction, and the Departments of Anthropology, Psychology, Computer Music, and History of Science.

He has been consulted on audio sound source separation for the U.S. Navy, and on audio quality for several rock bands and record labels (including the Steely Dan and Grateful Dead). Daniel served as one of the “Golden Ears” expert listeners in the original Dolby AC3 compression tests. For two years he worked as part of the Silicon Valley think tank Interval Research Corporation.