Ross K. Maddox, Ph.D.

Ross Maddox joined the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience in 2016. He did his postdoctoral training at University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. He earned his PhD and MS in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University, and his BS in Sound Engineering from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. Among the awards and honors he has received is the Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institutes of Health (K99/R00). He has published his research in numerous scientific journals, including Current Biology, PLOS Biology, and eLife.

Faced with the cacophony of daily life, the human brain is remarkably adept at focusing on one sound source while tuning out numerous competing others, effortlessly solving the so-called "cocktail party problem." Dr. Maddox studies the brain's solutions to this problem. His research has two main thrusts: to investigate how the visual system interacts with the auditory system to improve selective attention under noisy conditions, and to identify and dissociate the neural causes of disabled listening, particularly in people who show no signs of hearing impairment as defined by current audiologic testing. His work combines behavioral studies, electroencephalography recordings of neural activity, and novel applications of signal processing techniques.