Top Researchers
Top Neuroscience Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University for 2026
Carnegie Mellon University’s recent neuroscience work spans basic questions about brain function and applied efforts to improve life with neurological and sensory disorders. Across the last year, researchers at the university have published across cognitive neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and related areas that connect the lab, clinic, and engineering bench.
Below, you’ll find a snapshot of the scholars whose recent publications stood out in this sample, along with the themes that appear most often across the institution’s neuroscience output.
Featured Researchers
Barbara Shinn‐Cunningham
Barbara Shinn‐Cunningham’s recent Carnegie Mellon University work centers on cognitive neuroscience, speech and hearing, and experimental and cognitive psychology, with studies on auditory neural sound encoding, rhythm perception, and binaural unmasking in cochlear implant users.
Activity over the last year: 11 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Large-scale multi-site study shows no association between musical training and early auditory neural sound encoding (Aug 2025)
- How strong is the rhythm of perception? A registered replication of Hickok et al . (2015) (Jun 2025)
- Magnified interaural level differences enhance binaural unmasking in bilateral cochlear implant users (Feb 2025)
Douglas J. Weber
Douglas J. Weber’s recent publications connect cognitive neuroscience, cellular and molecular neuroscience, and biomedical engineering through implanted neural interfaces, spinal cord stimulation, and motor cortex recordings in people with ALS.
Activity over the last year: 9 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Overcoming failure: improving acceptance and success of implanted neural interfaces (Mar 2025)
- Neural mechanisms underlying the recovery of voluntary control of motoneurons after paralysis with spinal cord stimulation (Sep 2025)
- Motor activity in gamma and high gamma bands recorded with a Stentrode from the human motor cortex in two people with ALS (Mar 2025)
Byron M. Yu
Byron M. Yu’s recent Carnegie Mellon University papers span dynamical constraints on neural population activity, brain–computer interfaces as a causal probe, and fast multigroup Gaussian process factor models.
Activity over the last year: 8 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Carmel Majidi
Carmel Majidi’s recent work bridges biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering with flexible haptic interfaces, wearable cutaneous feedback, and printable fiber electrodes for intelligent digital apparel.
Activity over the last year: 6 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- A flexible skin-mounted haptic interface for multimodal cutaneous feedback (Sep 2025)
- Embodied Auxetic Intelligence in a Glove‐Type Wearable Haptic Interface Connecting Humans to Robots and the Metaverse (Feb 2025)
- Meter-scale heterostructure printing for high-toughness fiber electrodes in intelligent digital apparel (May 2025)
Jonathan S. Tsay
Jonathan S. Tsay’s recent research emphasizes motor adaptation, including the effects of stroke, target configuration, and training context on how movement is learned.
Activity over the last year: 6 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Jennifer L. Collinger
Jennifer L. Collinger’s recent Carnegie Mellon University publications focus on patterned microstimulation in somatosensory cortex, motor activity recorded with a Stentrode in ALS, and neural decoding strategies for brain–computer interfaces.
Activity over the last year: 5 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Tactile edges and motion via patterned microstimulation of the human somatosensory cortex (Jan 2025)
- Motor activity in gamma and high gamma bands recorded with a Stentrode from the human motor cortex in two people with ALS (Mar 2025)
- Using transient, effector-specific neural responses to gate decoding for brain–computer interfaces (Jan 2025)
Timothy Verstynen
Timothy Verstynen’s recent work links cognitive neuroscience with imaging and stress research, including stressor-evoked brain activity, cardiovascular reactivity, resting-state connectivity, and cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic modeling.
Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Stressor‐Evoked Brain Activity, Cardiovascular Reactivity, and Subclinical Atherosclerosis in Midlife Adults (Apr 2025)
- Resting-State Functional Connectivity Does Not Predict Individual Differences in Perceived Psychological Stress Among Midlife Adults: Evidence From a Preregistered Cross-Validation Study (Feb 2025)
- CBGTPy: An extensible cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic framework for modeling biological decision making (Jan 2025)
Eric A. Yttri
Eric A. Yttri’s recent studies span deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease, transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation, and striatal modulation of reinforcement and action selection.
Activity over the last year: 5 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Differential modulation of movement speed with state-dependent deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s disease (Sep 2025)
- Parameter-dependent cell-type specific effects of transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation in an awake head-fixed rodent model (Feb 2025)
- Striatal modulation supports context-specific reinforcement and not action selection (Jul 2025)
What Carnegie Mellon University's Neuroscience Community Is Working On
The most common themes across this sample are cognitive neuroscience and biomedical engineering, suggesting a strong campus-wide focus on how brain activity can be measured, modeled, and translated into useful interventions. Cellular and molecular neuroscience also appears repeatedly, alongside smaller but important contributions in speech and hearing and experimental psychology. Taken together, the subfields point to an active community working on neural interfaces, motor control, sensory processing, stimulation-based therapies, and the computational tools needed to understand complex brain behavior.- Cognitive Neuroscience - seen across 8 of the featured researchers
- Biomedical Engineering - seen across 5 of the featured researchers
- Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience - seen across 3 of the featured researchers
- Speech and Hearing - seen across 1 of the featured researchers
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology - seen across 1 of the featured researchers
This mix of neuroscience, engineering, and human-centered research shows a community moving between mechanism and application. Explore the researchers below to see how these threads connect, and consider using Resub to streamline citation discovery, manuscript formatting, and submission prep for your own work.
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