Olivia Podolak Lewandowska

Olivia Podolak Lewandowska is an Assistant Professor in the Teaching Stream with the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. She teaches statistics (PSYB07, PSYC08 and PSYC09) and explores various pedagogical approaches to equip students for success in an increasingly data-driven workplace and society. She also teaches music cognition courses within the Department of Psychology at UTSC (PSYC56) as well as the Faculty of Music at the St. George campus (MUS7406).

Dr. Lewandowska completed her Honours BSc in Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University with a specialization in Music Cognition (2012). She completed her MA (2013) and her PhD (2019) in Psychology at the University of Toronto under the supervision of Dr. Mark Schmuckler. During her time at the University of Toronto, she also conducted research at the RCM Neuroscience lab, as well as the Alain Lab at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Hospital. Her work within music cognition and perception focuses on elucidating the processes by which musicians and non-musicians listen to and respond to complex music. Her doctoral dissertation investigated the working and long-term memory mechanisms involved in the processing of changes to tonal schemata using behavioural measures and electroencephalography. She also studies expert piano performance to understand how these same memory mechanisms are engaged in processes of action-perception coupling.

Dr. Lewandowska does not provide research supervision to graduate students.