Juan David Leongomez

In 2006 I graduated with a 5-year BA in the field of music pedagogy from the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (Bogota, Colombia). For my undergraduate thesis work, I studied the phenomena of acoustic communication in non-human animals, especially birds and mammals; I tried to find elements to support the possibility of a non-human origin of the musical phenomenon, finding enormous similarities with the processes of musical production, listening and comprehension in humans.

In 2009 I obtained an MSc in Evolutionary Psychology with Distinction from the University of Liverpool. Working under the supervision of Dr. Craig Roberts, I focused my research project on the evolution of language and acoustic communication in humans, analysing variations in two non-semantic characteristics of human speech (i.e. pitch and loudness) in different social contexts: 1) when trying to attract a potential mate (inter-sexual) and 2) when competing for a potential mate (intra-sexual), finding significant context-dependant differences in the use of these music-like qualities.

Between 2009 and 2010 I held a full-time teaching position at the Department of Visual Arts Education at the Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, where I was also a member of the of the Research Committee and was in charge of the methodological supervision of several undergraduate training research projects.

I am currently starting a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Craig Roberts, funded by a 4-year scholarship from the Colombian Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (Colciencias).

2009 - Colciencias, “Francisco José de Caldas” scholarships for doctoral studies: This scholarship is awarded to Colombian nationals to undertake doctoral studies in top quality Universities abroad by the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation (Colciencias), based on “academic excellence and research potential”.

2009 - Annual Prize in Evolutionary Psychology 2008-2009: This Prize is awarded by the Board of Examiners of the MSc in Evolutionary Psychology (School of Biological Sciences - University of Liverpool) “to reflect best overall performance on the degree”.

2008 - University of Liverpool International Scholarship: This scholarship is awarded solely “on the basis of academic excellence” by the International Recruitment and Relations Office, University of Liverpool.

2008 - Colfuturo, Scholarship-Loan Programme: This prize is awarded to Colombian students who “have been admitted unconditionally into a high quality graduate program” and “have an excellent academic record”.

My main interest is looking at music from an evolutionary perspective. I intend to study the codes by which music transmits information: 1) identifying them and delving deeper into their peculiarities, experimentally studying the implicated human behaviours, and comparing them to the non-verbal codes of language, as well as 2) understand how and why the relevant neural mechanisms implicated in music and language processing overlap, by comparing the possible codes shared by music and language, and contrasting these findings with current relevant neuroimaging research.

Ferdenzi, C., Lemaître, J-F., Leongómez, J.D., Roberts, S.C. (In press). Digit ratio (2D:4D) predicts facial, but not voice or body odour, attractiveness in men. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Leongómez, J. D. (2008). El origen no humano de la música. Pensamiento, Palabra y Obra: Revista de la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, 0, pp. 87 – 97.