
Elizabeth Margulis
Musical Neuroscientist
Elizabeth is a professor of music at Princeton University and the Director of its Music Cognition Lab, which explores how music shapes memory, imagination, and cultural experience. As a leader in interdisciplinary research, she bridges musicology, psychology, and neuroscience. Elizabeth has served as President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition. Her award-winning work has been featured by NPR and the BBC. She brings scientific rigor to the ineffable power of music.
Musical Connection
How Music Hacks Your Daydreams

Just a few notes can send you elsewhere: back into a childhood memory or out into some imagined world. Drawing on neuroscience and cross-cultural research, Elizabeth Margulis, author of Transported: The Everyday Magic of Musical Daydreams, shows how music quietly 'hacks' spontaneous thought by activating patterns of associations we've learned implicitly over a lifetime. What feels like a private inner experience is often surprisingly shared, revealing the hidden structure behind the most elusive aspects of listening.