In 2019, I collaborated with the Sound and Music Perception Lab at UCSF to co-create a research study on the neuroscience of musical improvisation with Ustad Zakir Hussain, the foremost Indian classical percussionist in the world. He played a non-ferromagnetic tabla live in the fMRI to investigate the neural correlates of improvisation. This paper was finally published in Brain and Cognition in 2026 (my 1st first-author paper!) This is the first neuroscience study on Indian classical music, the most complex improvisatory form in the world.
During my summer internship, I got the epic opportunity to pitch a genius improviser that I wanted to study… Zakir ji came to mind immediately and happened to be playing at SF Jazz a few weeks later. At that concert, he graciously agreed to participate! We met with Zakir ji a couple times to discuss the study, and he was incredibly enthusiastic, generous, and brilliant. We landed on a paradigm that was naturalistic and still scientifically rigorous, building on the lab’s prior work on improvisation across art forms, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. I haven’t worked fulltime at this lab since summer of 2019, so it took nearly 7 years of persistence and consistency to get this paper out into the world in its final form.
Thank you to Dr. Karen Chan Barrett (my co-first author!), Dr. Charles Limb, and Patpong Jiradejvong for the years of teamwork & diligence, y’all are phenomenal scientists! Thank you to Sanjana Sanghani, Arjun Shah, and Aanand Dika for giving context on tabla & Indian classical music and valuable input on the project. Thank you to my family: Komal, Sanjeev, and Akash Dewan (my baby genius) and alllllll of my precious besties for alll the support and encouragement always <3
Massive thank you to
@devuswrld @devudances for the help curating and designing these graphics! I love working with you!
