I am currently an assistant professor in the Psychology Department at Rochester Institute of Technology, where I direct the PAW (Perception & Acquisition of Words Lab) as part of NTID's SPaCE center.
Prior to joining the faculty at RIT, I was a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University, where I worked in the Language Acquisition & Visual Attention lab, led by Dr. Amy Lieberman. I received my PhD in Developmental and Brain Sciences from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2017, and my BA in Psychology from the University of Connecticut. My research concerns the inter-relationships between the developing visual cognitive system and language acquisition. I am particularly interested in questions that expand our understanding of how joint attention contributes to language acquisition, and the relationship between early language experiences and low-level visual attention mechanisms. I primarily address these questions in infant and toddler populations, particularly deaf children acquiring American Sign Language. |
When I'm not in the lab you can find me hiking to the top of a mountain, testing out a new recipe in the kitchen, or running down the street for fun.