She received her BA in Neuroscience and BMus in Piano Performance from Northwestern University, and her PhD from the University of Cambridge. Her main interests are in musical rhythm and its relationship to the motor system, mechanisms of human timing, and brain plasticity, using fMRI and neurological patient testing. She was program chair for the 2015 SMPC conference in Nashville. She has received the national Charles Darwin Award from the British Science Association for public engagement with science, and has appeared on the BBC and Discovery Channel. She has received Investigator Awards from the Ministry for Economic Development and Innovation, the Canadian Institute for Health Research, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.