The following is adapted from a nomination letter written by Penny Pexman and Debra Titone

Dr. Russo received his Ph.D. in Brain, Behavior and Cognitive Science from Queen’s University in 2002 and has since established an internationally recognized and highly interdisciplinary research program that has significantly advanced our understanding of auditory cognition, music perception, communication, and healthy aging. Dr. Russo’s work is distinguished by its unusual breadth, theoretical coherence, and consistent translational impact. Across his career he has addressed fundamental questions about how humans perceive and use complex auditory signals—music, speech, and emotional vocalizations—while simultaneously shaping methodologies and technologies that allow these questions to be studied in ecologically valid contexts.

In music cognition, Dr. Russo has advanced a multimodal and embodied theoretical framework for the perception of singing and emotional speech, emphasizing the role of motor simulation and cross-modal integration. Equally important is his foundational program of research on vibrotactile music perception, which demonstrated that musical structure and affect can be conveyed through touch. His work has been critical to identifying the perceptual and neural mechanisms underlying this process. This work has been central to understanding how music is experienced by deaf individuals and has opened a new cross-modal perspective on auditory cognition. By showing how complex temporal and spectral information can be represented in the deaf brain through a process of neural entrainment measurable using electroencephalography (EEG), Dr. Russo helped redefine the sensory boundaries of music perception and provided a mechanistic framework for inclusive musical communication.

In the domain of hearing science and auditory aging, Dr. Russo has produced a sustained body of work that has influenced both theory and technology. His studies have generated key insights into how hearing aids process music and emotional speech and have helped shift the field away from speech intelligibility as the sole outcome measure toward metrics that capture listening effort, sound quality, affective communication, and real-world communicative success. These contributions have informed the development and evaluation of next-generation hearing-aid algorithms. By bringing neuroimaging into realistic communication environments, this research has helped move auditory cognitive neuroscience beyond highly constrained laboratory paradigms. Taken together, these contributions have reshaped how researchers and clinicians understand musical communication across sensory modalities, the neural basis of effortful listening, and the role of auditory enrichment in healthy aging.

Dr. Russo’s research has received coverage in major international and national media outlets, including CNN, The Guardian, and The Globe and Mail, bringing Canadian research on music, hearing, and cognition to broad audiences. He is often invited to speak at international meetings and has been invited to deliver over 20 Keynotes and Plenaries. Dr. Russo has been an active and dedicated member of the CSBBCS since his graduate training at Queen’s University. Dr. Russo has an exceptional and sustained record of training highly qualified personnel. In recognition of his outstanding mentorship and teaching, he received the Dean’s Teaching Award in 2019, supported by nomination letters from his trainees.  His service includes roles on the organizing committee for the 2014 annual meeting, as a member of the CSBBCS Executive (2019–2021), and on the Editorial Board of the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology (2012–2024). He has also been a consistent presence at our annual meetings, contributing through presentations, panel participation, student mentorship, and adjudication of student awards. In recognition of his excellence in research, mentorship, and service to cognitive science in Canada, he received CSBBCS’s Vincent Di Lollo Early Career Award and was elected a Fellow of the Society.

Dr. Russo has built a research program that is theoretically innovative, methodologically pioneering, internationally influential, and impactful beyond academia. He has trained an outstanding generation of researchers, helped define national research priorities through his adjudication service, played a foundational role in building one of Canada’s most dynamic centres for psychological science, and served the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science with distinction for more than two decades. He stands among the most significant contributors to Canadian brain and cognitive science of his career stage and is a most deserving recipient of this honour.