Jared Novick
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences (2022-present)
Co-Director, Undergraduate Honors Program in Hearing and Speech Sciences (2018-present)
Lead Faculty Fellow, University Honors (2020-present)
Director of Admissions and Associate Director, PhD Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (2021-present)
Co-Director, PhD Program in Hearing and Speech Sciences (2014-2020)
Cognitive Mechanisms of Language Processing
Our research investigates how people understand language in real time. Much of this employs an experimental paradigm that tracks listeners' eye movements as they listen to and comprehend spoken language, because eye fixation patterns provide important time-course information about ongoing interpretation processes. Our work is particularly focused on the cognitive control operations that support interpretation and re-interpretation procedures as language input unfolds moment by moment. Currently, we are engaged in a vigorous collaborative initiative funded by the National Science Foundation entitled, Direct Impacts of Executive Functions on Language Comprehension: Evidence from Eye Movements and Electrophysiology. The project combines EEG and eye-tracking methods to provide a multi-modal characterization of the neurocognitive processes that serve language comprehension, focusing on how attention and cognitive control contribute to adult sentence processing.
Dr. Novick's Background
I received my Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania (2000-2005), where I studied with John Trueswell and Sharon Thompson-Schill, with substantial input from Lila Gleitman. After Penn, I did post-doctoral training in functional neuroimaging methods with John Gabrieli at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2005-2007). My undergraduate training was completed at the University of Rochester in Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BA, 1998). I am now an associate professor at the University of Maryland, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences. I am also an active member of Maryland's vibrant Language Science community and the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science.
For Prospective Grad Students & Post-Docs
I supervise Ph.D. students in the Department of Hearing & Speech Sciences (HESP) and through the Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) at UMD. Application information for HESP can be found here, and for NACS here. If you would like to work with me as a student in one of those departments, please feel free to contact me directly. I am also eager to discuss post-doctoral grants (e.g., NRSA) with those who might be interested.