Jagmeet S. Kanwal, Ph.D.

Jagmeet “Jag” Kanwal, PhD, directs the Laboratory for Auditory Communication, Cognition and Decision making. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology. He joined Georgetown University as a founding member of the Institute for Cognitive and Computational Sciences with appointment in the Department of Neurology, and successively in Neuroscience (founded in 1999), Psychology and Physiology and Biophysics where he served as the Vice-Chair. He is also External Professor at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University. He is a von Humboldt scholar (1996) and a founding Principal Member (2015), in the area of Advising and Mentoring, of the Georgetown University Medical Center Teaching Academy. He has mentored junior faculty and over 50 trainees, including postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, undergraduates and high school students from around the world. 

Dr. Kanwal received a PhD in Physiology and Zoology in 1986 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver, CO and at Washington University in St. Louis where he was a Research Assistant Professor before moving to the Georgetown University Medical Center. During his tenure at Georgetown, his laboratory has conducted research on the brain and behavior of bats, human subjects, nonhuman primates and zebrafish. He is primarily interested in understanding the neural basis of socio-emotional communication using sounds.