Isabelle Peretz

Isabelle Peretz (born 1956) is a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal, holding a Canada Research Chair and Casavant Chair in neurocognition of music. She specializes in music cognition, focusing on congenital and acquired musical disorders (amusia) and on the cognitive and biological foundations of music processing in general. In 2005, Peretz became the founding co-director of the international laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound research (BRAMS), a multi-university consortium that is jointly affiliated with McGill University and the Université de Montréal. She is also currently a chief editor of the journal section Frontiers in Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience. Peretz was educated in Brussels, Belgium, and she earned her Ph.D. in experimental psychology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1984, after which she accepted a faculty position at UdeM, where she has remained ever since.