Daniel Levitin

Who is Daniel Levitin?

Daniel Joseph Levitin, Ph.D., FRSC, is an American cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, and writer. He is James McGill Professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with additional appointments in music theory, computer science, and education; Director of the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition and Expertise at McGill, and Dean of Arts and Humanities at The Minerva Schools at KGI. He is also a record producer and musician. From September 2006 to April 2007 he served as a weekly commentator on the CBC Radio One show Freestyle, and he has appeared frequently on NPR.

Levitin has published scientific articles on absolute pitch, music cognition and neuroscience and is more widely known as the author of two best-selling books, This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, and The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science and in 2013 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.