Nina Kraus is Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences; Neurobiology & Physiology and Director of the Auditory Neuroscience Lab (www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu). Kraus studies the biology of learning from the perspective of sound. From studying animals’ single neurons to children enrolled in music programs to adults with hearing loss, to the elderly, to bilinguals, she seeks to understand the mechanisms that engender experience-dependent changes. Changes in sound processing in the brain can be brought about by expertise (musicians; bilinguals) and by decline or deprivation (language disorders; poverty; aging); both have life-long consequences for communication. She is a technological innovator, earning three patents for technology for assessing the changing brain and founding a company to bring a sound-based measure of brain health into the marketplace. She strives to contextualize her research beyond neuroscience, aiming to influence medicine, education, and public policy.