Sarah M. N. Woolley facts for kids

Sarah M. N. Woolley is a scientist who studies the brain. She is a Professor of Psychology at Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute. Her work focuses on how brains learn and understand communication. She often studies songbirds to learn about vocal communication.

Sarah Woolley's Journey in Science

Sarah Woolley started her science journey at the University of Colorado Boulder. She earned her first degree in 1991. She studied both biology and psychology there.

After that, she went to the University of Washington School of Medicine. In 1999, she earned her PhD. Her research focused on how Bengalese finches learn and keep their songs. She worked in the lab of Edwin Rubel.

How Finches Learn Songs

Dr. Woolley discovered that male Bengalese finches need to hear themselves sing. This "auditory feedback" helps them keep their song patterns. If a finch becomes deaf, its song will get worse in about one week.

She also found that finches do not need to hear all sounds to keep their songs. Finches that lost the ability to hear high-pitched sounds could still sing well. She also learned that these finches can regrow tiny hearing cells. These cells can bring back their hearing in about eight weeks.

Studying Bird Brains

For her next research, she stayed at the University of Washington. She studied the midbrain of zebra finches. This part of the brain processes sounds. It then sends this information to the front part of the brain.

She found that this brain area is very good at understanding complex sounds. It can process sounds with great timing accuracy. It does not just react to simple sound cues.

In 2001, Dr. Woolley moved to the University of California, Berkeley. There, she studied how zebra finches tell voices apart. They can tell who is singing and also know if a sound is a song or just noise.

She learned that finch brain cells are very good at hearing finch songs. They are better at this than at hearing made-up sounds. This means their brains are specially tuned for their own bird calls. She found that most brain cells in the midbrain could precisely understand finch songs. But they reacted differently to general noise.

Understanding Communication in Animals

In 2006, Dr. Woolley joined the faculty at Columbia University. She became a professor in the Department of Psychology. From 2013 to 2016, she was the head of the department. In 2014, she became a member of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science.

Her lab studies how different finches learn and use sounds. They look at Bengalese, zebra, and long-tailed finches. This helps them understand how humans communicate using sound.

Her team has also studied how songs affect mating choices in birds. Songbirds' brains are specially designed to turn sounds into social messages. Dr. Woolley's group found that male and female bird brains are wired differently for this.

Her research gets support from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Awards and Special Recognitions

• Elected member, Kavli Institute for Brain Science, 2014
• Searle Scholars Program Award, 2007 – 2011