People

The lab just after moving to UC Berkeley in Fall 2025. From left to right: Rajvi, Liberty, Gerick, Leah. Statue by Barbara Grygutis.

We are currently hiring a Staff Research Associate II. We also plan to take graduate students in Fall 2026 from the Neuroscience PhD program and the Statistics PhD programs. Those who are interested in potential postdoctoral opportunities should reach out directly to Liberty - (liberty dot hamilton at berkeley dot edu). We are always on the look out for lab members who are interested in natural sound processing including speech perception and production, developmental neuroscience, computational neuroscience, and translational research in epilepsy and who are excited to work in multidisciplinary teams.

Director

Liberty Hamilton, Ph.D.

Our lab examines how speech is represented in the auditory cortex and changes across development, using intracranial EEG in patients and EEG in healthy populations. Liberty is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Department of Statistics at UC Berkeley. She also holds an adjunct appointment at UCSF Department of Neurosurgery, and affiliations with the University of Texas at Austin and Baylor College of Medicine.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Gerick Lee, Ph.D.

Gerick Lee, a Weill Neurohub Fellow, holds a PhD in Neural Science from New York University. His work uses behavioral and neurophysiological methods to study how the brain encodes sensory inputs, and to study how that function develops. He loves to hike, ski and yap, often with a bad Australian accent.

Graduate Students

Rajvi Agravat

Rajvi Agravat is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience whose research focuses speech and music perception, particularly in naturalistic 'cocktail party' settings. She uses direct brain recordings (sEEG) and computational modeling to study acoustic representations of sound and effects of attention on these representations in individuals with epilepsy. Before beginning her doctorate, Rajvi worked on the vocal motor cortex in mice in the lab of Dr. Erich Jarvis at Rockefeller University. Outside of work, you will find her trying new restaurants and cuisines, reading books, volunteering at the Austin Animal Shelter, or planning her next travel.

Leah (Xin) Du

Leah is a first-year doctoral student with a background in computer science and psychology, interested in bilingualism and imagined speech via ECoG.

Elise Rickert, AuD

Elise completed her AuD at UT Austin in May 2025, and is completing a project on development of speech in noise processing in the brain.

Research Coordinators

Sandy Georges

Sandy recruits patients at Texas Children's Hospital and collects iEEG data. She has a background in neuroscience and pharmacology and is interested in neurology and psychiatry.

Jacob Leisawitz

Jacob recently graduated from Syracuse University and works at Texas Children’s Hospital studying auditory mechanisms in epilepsy patients.

Rotating Students

Lauren Ralston, Au.D.

Lauren is a PhD student focused on EEG-based sound encoding and brain reorganization in tinnitus and hearing loss. She manages the Central Sensory Processes Lab.

Undergraduate Researchers

We often have opportunities for undergraduates! For opportunities, get in touch with us here.

Alumni

Diego Mac-Auliffe, M.D., Ph.D.

Diego's research focused on closed-loop BCI systems and high-level cognitive neuroscience using invasive EEG. He completed his PhD in France on multitasking and attention and is a postdoc in ECE, Moody College, and Neurology. Diego was jointly supervised by Dr. Jose Millan at UT Austin, and now is working with Dr. Lori Holt in the Department of Psychology at UT Austin. He continues to collaborate with the lab.

Yao Chen, PhD

Yao completed a PhD rotation in the lab, analyzing iEEG during speech errors and exploring non-native speech perception.

Giselle Pedraza

Giselle is a Music and Neuroscience major exploring auditory cognition and sound processing, with a love for piano, music, and dancing.

Anisha Cheena Sait

Anisha is a Neuroscience and Sociology major interested in speech processing, neurodegeneration, and computational approaches to the brain.

Indrani Basu

Indrani is a triple major in WGS, Neuroscience, and Plan II. She enjoys yoga, ceramics, and UT Microfarm and plans to study pediatric neurology.

Amara Vincent-Nsobundu

Amara is a Public Health major with interests in language processing and data science. She also enjoys reading and applied statistics.

Fouad Tawil

Fouad is a Computational Biology major focused on speech, language, and neural modeling. He also leads a nonprofit and enjoys paddle boarding.

Erica McVey, AuD

Erica completed her AuD capstone project on EEG speech-in-noise encoding in ASL interpreters, linking auditory and cross-modal plasticity.

Arpan Patel, MD

Arpan completed his master's thesis in the lab on speech decoding models.

Lauren Hilder

Lauren is a UT Austin undergraduate in Medical Sciences who worked as a summer intern with our collaborators at TCH and as a research student at UT Austin.

Alyssa Field, M.Ed.

Alyssa managed sEEG neuroimaging and lab operations. She holds degrees in Linguistics and Secondary Education, with interests in digital humanities and sociolinguistics. Current position: Community Outreach Coordinator at UT Health San Antonio.

Maansi Desai, Ph.D.

Maansi studies auditory attention and naturalistic speech encoding using EEG and iEEG. She completed her PhD at UT Austin and is now a part-time postdoc in the lab. Current position: Clinical Research Scientist at Paradromics, Inc.

G. Lynn Kurteff, Ph.D.

Lynn investigates self-generated versus external auditory feedback using EEG and sEEG. Their research also explores error detection and correction systems in the brain. Current position: Postdoc in Dr. Gregory Hickok's lab at UC Irvine.

Aneri Shah

As a part of this lab, Aneri learned to run EEG data collection sessions with adult participants and gained a deeper understanding of the EEG methodology and preprocessing.

Lydia Su

Completed her AuD research capstone on speech in noise difficulties using audiometry, ABR, and EEG.

Gabby Foox

Research Coordinator at Texas Children's Hospital. Now at Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine (2024).

Therese Ancheta

Shadowed at Texas Children's Hospital during Summer 2023.

Alex Foox

Shadowed at Texas Children's Hospital in Summer 2023. Now an undergraduate at UT Austin.

Saman Asghar

Contributed to pediatric data collection at Texas Children’s Hospital. Now pursuing a DO at UIW School of Osteopathic Medicine.

Malinda Mullet

Worked on sEEG data preprocessing (2021–2023). Now in AuD externship at Carle ECHO/CAOS.

Katherine Huang

Created pediatric-friendly research materials in Fall 2022.

Beth Oldenburg

Assisted EEG data collection using movie trailers (Fall 2022). Plans to pursue a Master of Communication Disorders.

Anokhi Shah

Assisted EEG data collection using movie trailers (Fall 2022). Graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience and minor in Journalism.

Jacob Cheek

Worked on virtual classroom fatigue measures (2021–2023). Currently in AuD externship at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison, WI.

Donise Tran

Undergrad researcher (2019–2020). Now in graduate school for SLP. Interested in Deaf community speech education.

Sahar Hashemgeloogerdi, Ph.D.

Ph.D. in ECE from University of Rochester. Studied BCI and acoustic signal processing in Hamilton Lab.

Tasha Anslyn

Undergrad researcher on EEG of speech production/perception. Interested in linguistics and speech disorders.

Amanda Martinez

CSD graduate (2021). Interested in brain and language processing in children and adults. Plans to become an SLP.

Chris Truong

Assisted with EEG project on speech perception vs. production.

Claire Huber

Completed undergraduate studies in Linguistics and Computer Science (2019). Worked on speech perception/production project.

Valerie Rae Mercado

Graduated with BA in English, Linguistics, and Japanese. Now a tutor and linguistics grad school hopeful.

Brittany Hoang

SLHS graduate (2021). Now working as an SLPA and planning to pursue graduate studies in SLP.

Nicole Currens

Undergrad researcher (2019–2020). Worked on EEG for naturalistic speech. Majored in Linguistics and CS.

Nick Arreguy

Independent study on EEG artifact rejection using ICA (Spring 2020).

Rachel Sorrells

Independent research through UT Neuroscience and Moody IE Program (2019–2020).

Jade Holder

Undergrad researcher (2018–2020). Started Master's in Communication Disorders at UT Dallas (Fall 2020).

Ian Griffith

Research Assistant (2018–2020). Worked on neural networks for pitch and phonology. Now a PhD student at Harvard/MIT.

Paranjaya Pokharel

Undergrad research volunteer (Summer–Fall 2019).

Natalie Miller

Summer 2019 volunteer. Now pursuing a PhD in Musicology at Princeton.

Greta Lowery, MA, CCC-SLP

Masters student (2017–2019). Studied simultaneous speech and music perception via EEG. Now a pediatric SLP, entering PhD program in 2024.

Cassandra Villarreal

Undergrad volunteer (2018–2019). Now in graduate school at University of Washington for Medical SLP.

Nat Clark

Undergrad volunteer (2018–2019). Graduated from CSD at UT Austin, now in MS-SLP program at TWU.

Stephanie Shields

Rotation student (2019). Now in the Alex Huk Lab (UT Neuroscience).

Noora Raad

Research volunteer (2017–2018).

Shun Kobayashi

Rotation student (2018). Now in the Eyal Seidemann Lab (UT Center for Perceptual Systems).