Sarah Woolley is Professor and former Chair in the Department of Psychology and Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University. She is also a faculty member in the Kavli Institute for Brain Science and Center or Integrative Animal Behavior. Dr. Woolley’s laboratory studies the neuroscience of social communication, using songbirds to decipher the neural and behavioral mechanisms of auditory-vocal communication. Because songbirds share with humans the rare ability to learn the vocal sounds they use to communicate, they serve as the principal animal model for understanding how the brain uses early social experience to build complex auditory perceptual and vocal motor skills for communication. Dr. Woolley’s research is supported by the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the National Science Foundation, the Kavli Foundation and the Columbia University Research Initiative in Science and Engineering.