Nashra AhmadView profile
Research Fellow
Nashra Ahmad is a Research Fellow at Durham University, affiliated with the Department of Music and the Institute for Medical Humanities. She is a PhD candidate supported by the Durham Doctoral Studentship and holds a Master's in Cognitive Science from IIT Gandhinagar (2021) and a BA in Psychology (First Class Honours) from Aligarh Muslim University (2018). Her research focuses on rhythm perception, consonance/dissonance dynamics, and music cognition, combining neuroscience and interdisciplinary approaches. She is an active member of the Music and Science Lab and an editorial assistant for DURMS . Additionally, she teaches Psychology at the Durham Centre for Academic Development (DCAD). Key research interests include: rhythmic entrainment in North Indian classical music, sensorimotor synchronization, and neural correlates of musical perception. Her work bridges cognitive science, musicology, and technology, with publications in Data in Brief , Frontiers in Neurorobotics , and Music & Science . Awards include the Sabarmati Bridge Fellowship (2021) for pre-doctoral research and the Durham Doctoral Studentship (2022). Education: Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (First Class Honours), Aligarh Muslim University, 2018 Masters in Cognitive Science, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, 2021 Her publications analyze EEG responses to music, resonance strategies in AI design, and beat prediction from neural data. She has presented at international conferences such as the International Conference of Students of Systematic Musicology (2023) and the Max-Planck-Institut für empirische Ästhetik (2022). Awards: 2022: Durham Doctoral Studentship 2021: Sabarmati Bridge Fellowship Teaching and Outreach: She teaches Psychology to foundation-year students at DCAD and has prior experience teaching guitar and music theory in India. Her creative interests include landscape painting and sculpting, reflecting her interdisciplinary engagement with art and science.









