Jessica Phillips-Silver received her Ph.D. in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University, where she worked with Professor Laurel Trainor in the Auditory Development Lab. Jessica then pursued her postdoctoral training in music neuropsychology at the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), at the University of Montreal, under the supervision of Professor Isabelle Peretz.

Jessica’s doctoral publications on “feeling the beat” in music were featured on the Discovery Channel. Since then, Jessica has reviewed Oliver Sacks’ book Musicophilia for Science Magazine, and written an invited chapter for Woitas and Hartmann, Eds, The Internal and External Motor Activity of Stravinky’s Stage Works, Epodium Verlag Publishers.

Jessica was a selected artist at the first innaugural Science Communications Journalism Program at The Banff Centre. She created a “science masterclass” (based on the music model), on the communication of research for graduate students, which was hosted by the Discovery Channel’s Jay Ingram. She was recently a guest at the Ontario Science Center’s Science Café, for a public program on music and the brain.

Jessica is also trained in vocal performance and music education, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and she currently performs with Cuban jazz composer and pianist Yoel Diaz in Montreal.

Jessica was invited speaker at the 22nd I Medici Lecture on Biology of Music, April 19, 2010.