SIGNAL/NOISE

Scott Leimroth

I study the signals the body makes when music plays.

SCROLL
Scott Leimroth, portrait
PhD Candidate, UoW · Wollongong, NSW
00 / About

A scientist, a musician, a marketer.

I'm a scientist, marketer, musician, biker, diver, and teacher, generally distracted and doing too many things at once.

Currently a PhD Candidate, Academic Tutor, and HDR Representative in the School of Psychology at the University of Wollongong, where my research focuses on cardiovascular measures of cognition in relation to music listening. Supervisors: Professor Robert Barry, Dr Frances De Blasio, and Dr Timothy Byron.

Also marketing manager for Berrima Diesel Service, Australia's premier diesel specialists, a role held for over 20 years. Outside the lab and the office: two wheels, underwater, or somewhere else entirely.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science."
Albert Einstein
B.Mus., B.Ed.
UNSW, 1994
B.Psych.Sci.
UoW, Social Marketing Major, 2019
B.Psych. (Hons.)
UoW, 2021
PhD Candidate
UoW, 2022 onwards
ORCID
0000-0003-3617-7994
Role
Academic Tutor, HDR Rep, School of Psychology
01 / Research

Measuring the unmeasurable.

R / 01

Cardiovascular Measures of Cognition

Primary PhD focus: how heart rate variability and cardiac output reflect cognitive and emotional states in response to music listening. What the body reveals that words cannot.

Primary Research
R / 02

Music and the Autonomic System

Mapping the relationship between musical structure (tempo, timbre, harmonic tension) and the body's involuntary physiological responses, including skin conductance and HRV.

Psychophysiology
R / 03

EEG and the Orienting Reflex

Extending Sokolov's orienting reflex model using EEG/ERP methods, investigating how neural responses to unexpected stimuli reveal the architecture of attention and cognition.

Cognitive Neuroscience

Awards

Publications and Presentations

02 / Marketing

Marketing is about relationships.

Three generations of diesel expertise at Berrima Diesel Service
·Three generations of diesel expertise, Berrima Diesel Service

For over 20 years I've led marketing for Berrima Diesel Service, Australia's premier diesel specialists, a family business approximately 100km south of Sydney. From brand strategy and website development through to social media, packaging, and customer communications, every part of the marketing function has been built and managed in-house.

Berrima Diesel is recognised worldwide in the 4WD community as the original diesel gurus, with over 65 years of combined experience. Featured in Overlander, 4x4 Australia, Caravan World, Truck, and on TV.

With a degree in social marketing and behaviour change alongside two decades of hands-on experience, I bring an unusual combination of academic rigour and practical execution to marketing challenges.

Visit Berrima Diesel
20+
Years of marketing experience across digital, print, social, and brand strategy
100k
Social media followers across Berrima Diesel channels
65+
Years of combined diesel expertise behind the brand
03 / Music

Sound is my first language.

Graduated from UNSW in 1994 with a Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Education, specialising in performance and music education. Music has never left: it's both the subject of my PhD research and a constant presence as a performer and teacher.

The connection between music and the body is what drives my research. Every rhythmic pattern, every harmonic shift, every unexpected beat creates a physiological response in the listener. Understanding that response is understanding something fundamental about what it means to be human.

  • ~Performer with over 30 years of active musical experience
  • ~Music educator at secondary and tertiary levels
  • ~Research specialisation: psychophysiology of music perception
The Works, on tour in NSW, circa 1983
·The Works, on tour in NSW, c. 1983
  • B.Mus. / Performance and Education, UNSW 1994
  • B.Ed. / Music Education, UNSW 1994
  • Tutor / School of Psychology, UoW
  • ORCID / 0000-0003-3617-7994
04 / Life

Every frequency tells a story.

An EEG waveform, a guitar chord, a motorbike engine at redline, the sonar ping of a dive computer at depth. Mathematically, they're all the same thing: oscillation. Signal. Meaning encoded in wave.

Riding through outback Australia
◈
Mechanical Signal

Motorcycles

Two wheels, open road. A constant feedback loop between machine and rider. The journey is the point, and the memories made along the way are the signal worth keeping.

Underwater exploration on scuba
◉
Depth Signal

Scuba Diving

Below the surface, the signal changes entirely. Silence, pressure, bioluminescence. The dive computer pings. Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Exploring archaeological sites
✦
Discovery Signal

Adventure

Travel, exploration, and the deliberate practice of being in places you've never been before. Curiosity is not a hobby; it's a methodology.

05 / Contact

Let's make some noise.

Research·Collaboration·Anything interesting