Assistant professor among 92 researchers from around the world to receive Human Frontier Science Program grants

Congratulations to Jonathan Cannon on receiving a Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Research – Early Career grant.

Jonathan is among 92 researchers from around the world to receive HFSP grants in 2025 – more than 2,100 researchers working on 780 projects had applied for funding. Grants were awarded to five researchers in Canada, including Lindsay Kalan in McMaster University’s Department of Biochemistry & Biomedical Science.

HFSP supports innovative basic research into fundamental biological problems with an emphasis on novel and interdisciplinary approaches that involve scientific exchanges across national and disciplinary boundaries.

Since 1990, HFSP has supported more than 8,500 researchers from over 70 countries, with 31 awardees going on to receive the Nobel Prize.

Early career grants are reserved for teams of two to four members who are all within 10 years of earning their PhDs and five years after obtaining their first independent position.

Jonathan, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behavior, is collaborating with Dan Bang, an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University in Denmark, to explore sub-second dopamine dynamics in human basal ganglia during beat perception and rhythmic action.

Their research aims to deepen understanding of the biological basis of rhythm, central to music, dance, speech and many other human activities. It will also provide general insights on how best to treat dopamine-related disorders like Parkinson’s disease.

Jonathan is a computational neuroscientist, mathematician, and experimental psychologist. His graduate work at Boston University involved building and studying mathematical models of oscillations in neural circuits and their roles in the generation of stereotyped motor processes like birdsong and in routing communication within the brain. He did postdoctoral research at Brandeis University modeling neuronal homeostasis, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducting behavioral and electrophysiological experiments exploring predictive cognitive processes in autism.

His current research interests are focused on timing and rhythm in perception and action, with particular interest in timing-related neural dynamics in the basal ganglia, cerebellum, and supplementary motor area. This interest is rooted in his experience as a performing musician: outside of his academic and teaching career, he has spent much of his time playing traditional Jewish, Celtic, and Romanian music on violin and guitar.