Rate My Professor Andrea Hasenstaub

Andrea Hasenstaub, PhD, is Professor in the Coleman Memorial Laboratories in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She earned a BS in Mathematics and Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1999, an M.Phil. in Biological Anthropology from Cambridge University in 2000, and a PhD in Neurobiology from Yale University in 2006, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. Prior to her current role, she served as Associate Professor at UCSF. Her research focuses on the genetic, cellular, and network operations of specific cell types in the mouse and human auditory cortex. Key areas include inhibitory microcircuitry regulating cortical activity timing, strength, and developmental plasticity in normal and diseased brains, with implications for central auditory processing disorders such as hyperacusis and tinnitus, as well as neurodevelopmental conditions like schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and bipolar disorder. Another major line of investigation involves electrophysiological and genetic studies of human cerebral cortex using tissue from surgical patients to identify human-specific neuron types, connectivity, and specializations underlying cognitive differences compared to model organisms like mice, rats, ferrets, and cats.

Hasenstaub employs optical and genetic technologies to measure and manipulate targeted cell populations, elucidating biophysical and circuit mechanisms of cortical computations, input integration, and modulation by long-range or neuromodulatory inputs. Her laboratory has produced influential publications, including 'Timing and Convergence of Ensemble Activity Govern Auditory Thalamocortical Transmission' (Journal of Neuroscience, 2026), 'Sensory origin of visually evoked activity in auditory cortex' (Cell Reports, 2025), 'Basic Properties of Coordinated Neuronal Ensembles in the Auditory Thalamus' (Journal of Neuroscience, 2024), 'Offset Responses in the Auditory Cortex Show Unique History Dependence' (Journal of Neuroscience, 2022), and 'Nests of dividing neuroblasts sustain interneuron production for the developing human brain' (Science, 2022). She serves as Principal Investigator on NIH grants such as R01NS116598 for cortical circuitry in audiovisual interactions and R01DC014101 for dynamic regulation of auditory context processing by cortical inhibition, and as Co-Principal Investigator on R01MH122478 and R01EY025174. Hasenstaub is a member of the UCSF Academic Senate and Vice Chair of the University Committee on Academic Freedom for 2025-2026. Her work, with over 6,600 citations, advances understanding of auditory processing and cortical plasticity in health and disease.