Peter Keller holds degrees in Music (BMus) and Psychology (BA, PhD) from UNSW, Sydney. He is currently Professor in Neuroscience of Music in the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development at Western Sydney University with a joint appointment in the Center for Music in the Brain and the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University (Denmark).

Past appointments include research positions at Haskins Laboratories and Yale University (New Haven, USA), the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research (Munich, Germany), and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Leipzig, Germany), where he led the Max Planck Research Group for Music Cognition and Action (2007-2012).

Academic honors include an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship at Durham University (UK), a Visiting Professorship at the Central European University in Budapest (Hungary), and a European Institutes for Advanced Study (EURIAS) Fellowship at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Germany).

Keller served as editor of the interdisciplinary journal Empirical Musicology Review, was Associate Editor at Music Perception, Royal Society Open Science, and Psychological Research, and editorial board member at Advances in Cognitive Psychology. He is a founding member of the Australian Music and Psychology Society.

Keller’s research addresses the behavioral and brain bases of human interaction in musical contexts. A particular focus is on individual differences in sensory-motor and cognitive skills that enable precise yet flexible interpersonal coordination. This work examines relationships between behavior in naturalistic musical settings (using motion capture technology) and controlled laboratory experiments (using sensorimotor synchronization tasks with real or virtual partners), social-psychological factors (e.g., personality), and brain structure and function (assessed with EEG, TMS, and MRI). Applications span music education, human-machine interaction, and the assessment and rehabilitation of clinical conditions that impair movement fluency and social functioning. His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, the European Commission, and the Carlsberg Foundation, among others.

• Social interaction in musical contexts
• Musical ensemble coordination
• Sensorimotor synchronization
• Performance skills
• Rhythm & timing
• Musical improvisation