Don Vaughn is an American

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

and science communicator. He is a postdoctoral scholar at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior and adjunct faculty at Santa Clara University. His perceptual research aims to elucidate neural mechanisms of consciousness and perception using machine learning. Vaughn has presented his findings on empathy and

neuroplasticity Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity, or brain plasticity, is the ability of Neural circuit, neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. It is when the brain is rewired to function in some way that diffe ...

in a TEDx talk as well as at the

Society for Neuroscience The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is a professional society, headquartered in Washington, DC, for basic scientists and physicians around the world whose research is focused on the study of the brain and nervous system. It is especially well kn ...

and

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

Network Narratives.

Science

Research

Working in

David Eagleman David Eagleman (born April 25, 1971) is an American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator. He teaches neuroscience at Stanford University and is CEO and co-founder of Neosensory, a company that develops devices for sensory substituti ...

's laboratory, Vaughn helped discover that brains create perception by integrating peri-dictively, that is, information both before and after an event contribute to our perception of it. Eagleman and Vaughn also discovered the "glimpse effect", in which briefly glimpsed photographs of people were judged to be more attractive than the same photographs viewed for a long duration. As a QCBio Collaboratory Fellow, he teaches a seminar on modern statistical methods (permutations, machine learning, bootstrapping) to UCLA faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students. He also taught machine learning at the UCLA NITP Summer Course. He earned his PhD in neuroscience at UCLA with his thesis entitled "Using Machine-Learning to Diagnose Perception, Feeling, and Action: A Study of Neuroimaging, Psychometric, and Insurance Claims Data". Recently, Vaughn and Ariana Anderson received a grant from UCLA's CTSI Research to develop ChatterBaby, an app that facilitates communication between hearing-impaired parents and their hearing-abled babies. The app facilitates communication between parent and child by translating sound into colored waveforms in real-time, allowing parents to develop a visual intuition of what their and their babies's speech sounds like. This "sensory substitution" will allow parents to not only recognize patterns when their child speaks, but also tailor their own speech patterns to what best allows them to communicate with their child. ChatterBaby is featured in Vaughn's TEDx talk, but is undergoing more development before public release. Vaughn and Eagleman created an app, eyeFi which acts as a reverse visualizer, turning video information into sound. eyeFi is an entertainment of a deeper concept the two were exploring on using

sensory substitution Sensory substitution is a change of the characteristics of one sensory modality into stimuli of another sensory modality. A sensory substitution system consists of three parts: a sensor, a coupling system, and a stimulator. The sensor records stimu ...

to overcome visual impairments by translating vision into audio for the blind.

TEDx

Vaughn gave a

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

talk at UCLA on neuroplasticity, entitled "Neurohacking: Rewiring Your Brain".

Media

Vaughn has made TV appearances on ''

Entertainment Tonight ''Entertainment Tonight'' (or simply ''ET'') is an American Broadcast syndication, first-run syndicated news broadcasting news magazine, newsmagazine program that is distributed by CBS Media Ventures throughout the United States and owned by Para ...

'', ''

The Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It was ...

'', ''

Nova ScienceNow ''Nova ScienceNow'' (styled ''NOVΛ scienceNOW'') is a spinoff of the long-running and venerable PBS science program ''Nova''. Premiering on January 25, 2005, the series was originally hosted by Robert Krulwich, who described it as an experiment ...

'', ''ShapingHOU'', ''Great Day Houston'', and ''Local KPRC''. Vaughn has been featured in ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', ''002houston'', ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...

'', ''Houston Magazine'', ''First Class Magazine'', ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With it ...

'', ''

Daily Bruin The ''Daily Bruin'' is the student newspaper at the University of California, Los Angeles. It began publishing in 1919, the year UCLA was founded. The ''Daily Bruin'' distributes about 6,000 copies across campus each school day. It also publis ...

'', and ''Culture Map''.

Music career

From 2012 to 2015 Vaughn was also a DJ and producer. His first album, entitled ''The Don Vaughn Experiment'', featured former

98 Degrees 98 Degrees (stylized as 98°) is an American pop and R&B vocal group consisting of four vocalists: the group's founding member Jeff Timmons, brothers Nick and Drew Lachey, and Justin Jeffre. The group was formed by Timmons in Los Angeles, Cali ...

singer Nick Lachey, reached #28 on the iTunes Dance charts.

Victoria Vesna Victoria Vesna (born 1959) is a professor and digital media artist. She is known for her feminist video, computer and internet art and has been active since the early 1980s. Along with collaborator Jim Gimzewski she is thought to have created one ...

, Mark Cohen, Vaughn, and others in the art and science community at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

presented a performance entitled "brainstorming" at Sonos Studios in Los Angeles. The exhibit explored the effect of music on feelings of connectedness, and how brain activity changed as a result.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaughn, Don American neuroscientists American DJs Living people People from San Diego Stanford University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)