Howard C. Nusbaum is professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Psychology and its College, and a steering committee member of the Neuroscience Institute. Nusbaum is an internationally recognized expert in cognitive psychology, speech science, and in the new field of social neuroscience. His work has shown the importance of viewing speech perception as a cognitive process and elucidating the roles of attention, learning and memory in spoken language understanding more broadly.

Nusbaum went to Brandeis University, Massachusetts, and obtained a B.A. in psychology and computer science in 1976. He was awarded Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from SUNY at Buffalo (New York) in 1981. He then worked as a research associate at Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana), and joined the University of Chicago in 1986, where he is a professor and the Chair of the Department of Psychology. Nusbaum is the co-director the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience.

Howard Nusbaum has one daughter (Rebecca), and he is married to Anne Henly who is the co-director of the undergraduate program in psychology. They live in Hyde Park, Chicago with their two Newfoundlands boys, Newton and Otto.