Jaya Viswanathan, MS, PhD

Jaya (formally Jayalakshmi) Viswanathan, MS, PhD, is a Research Program Analyst (KGS contractor) in the Division of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging (NIA).  She supports programmatic efforts aimed at achieving the research goals of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, especially those pertaining to brain aging, Alzheimer's disease, and related dementias. Viswanathan completed her Bachelor of Technology in biotechnology with honors from SASTRA University in India, followed by a Master of Science in Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She completed her PhD in neuroscience at a CNRS lab (CerCo) at the University of Toulouse in France where she investigated the neural mechanisms that underlie auditory perception and long-term memory. She extended these findings during her post-doctoral fellowship at the Neural Systems Laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park, using neurophysiological techniques to understand age-related changes in the response properties of neurons in auditory and frontal cortices.