James Heaton, Ph.D.
Neuroscientist
Phone: 617-726-0211
jheaton@partners.org

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James T. Heaton was born in Wilmington, Delaware (USA) in 1967. He received a B.A. degree in psychology from Luther College (Decorah, IA) in 1990, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in psychology from the University of Maryland (College Park, MD) in 1993 and 1997, respectively. He joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1997 in the Department of Otology and Laryngology, and he is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery. He also Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions (Boston, MA), where he teaches neuroanatomy, anatomy and physiology , and speech science to graduate students seeking the M.S. degree in Speech Language Pathology.

Dr. Heaton is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, and his research interests include the neural mechanisms of vocal learning and vocal production in birds and mammals. His recent research projects have focused on human larynx innervation (neurolaryngology), exploring new methods for quantitative assessment of laryngeal function as well as methods for establishing a link between laryngeal nerves and prosthetic equipment for neural control of an artificial voice source. He is also investigating the use of face and neck surface EMG signals for speech encoding in both vocally normal and disabled individuals to be implemented in an advanced communication system under support from the US Department of Defense (DARPA).