Dora Angelaki’s research focuses on understanding how multisensory information flows between subcortical and cortical brain areas, as well as the spatial navigation, decision-making and episodic memory circuits, and how internal states modulate this information flow. The Angelaki laboratory uses innovative approaches to investigate neural dynamics and network coding of multisensory and multimodal information at multiple stages of processing in contexts related to navigation, planning and perceptual decisions. In particular, they investigate the neural bases of canonical neural computations and how they go astray in disorders such as autism spectrum disorder. The goal is to use this knowledge to understand computational principles of disease, to inform artificial systems, aid the development of prosthetics and other tools for understanding and treating deficits of sensory coding, spatial orientation, cognition and action.

In 2012, Angelaki was awarded the inaugural Pradel Research Award in Neuroscience by the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her discoveries on the mechanisms of representation of vestibular sensory stimuli within the mammalian brain. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences since 2014.