Lab Members (& Friends)
PI
Associate Professor
Hearing and Speech Sciences
Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
POSTDOCS
Tal Ness comes to us from Israel. She did her PhD at the Sentence Processing Lab of Dr. Aya Meltzer-Asscher, within the linguistics department and the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. Tal works jointly with Dr. Albert Kim's lab at the University of Colorado Boulder through a collaborative NSF grant. She studies language processing, mostly using EEG and behavioural methods. More specifically, in her previous research she mainly focused on prediction processes during language comprehension, and in her work at UMD she will be focusing on the involvement of cognitive control in language processing. Tal is also somewhat of a statistics geek! In her free time, she enjoys sewing, knitting, doing pilates and hiking.
Val Langlois is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), working with Al Kim. But she is closely affiliated with us because she is a collaborator on an NSF-funded project between UMD and CU (and she plans to visit periodically!). Val recently received her Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and her B.S. and B.A. from the University of Rochester. She is currently interested in how distributional information in language influences language learning, and also how individual differences affect language comprehension. She is originally from Boston MA, and in her free time, she enjoys pottery and reading.
GRAD STUDENTS
ZOE OVANS
PhD Student, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
Zoe earned her undergraduate degrees in Cognitive Science and English from Johns Hopkins University and is now a Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program where she is co-advised by Dr. Yi Ting Huang. Zoe is interested in the role of cognitive control in online language processing and its effects on word learning and the acquisition of syntax. In her free time she loves to hike, travel, and read cheesy science fiction novels.
ZACH MAHER
Zach is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program, jointly advised by Jan Edwards and Jared Novick. He studies how individuals process grammatical variation associated with different dialects. He is also interested in educational implications of dialect variation, which he has studied as part of the UMD ToggleTalk Project. Before coming to UMD, he received a B.A. and M.A. in Linguistics at Yale University, where he was a founding member of the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project. He was also a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Berlin, Germany and worked at an educational foundation in Newark, NJ.
LAUREN SALIG
PhD Student, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
Lauren is a graduate student in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program, co-advised by Bob Slevc. She is originally from Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Lauren received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and Spanish from Elon University in 2017 (honors in both!) and spent a year after graduation in Neuquén, Argentina teaching English on a Fulbright grant. For her graduate studies, she is interested in researching language processing through an intercultural lens that considers how language processing might be affected by bilingualism, accents, code-switching, and the like.
KELLY MARSHALL
PhD Student, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
Kelly is a Maryland native who is excited to join the NACS community. Kelly graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a B.A. in Cognitive Science and Psychology and she completed her Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology at George Washington University. She previously worked clinically as a speech-language pathologist. Her research interests include understanding the role of executive functions in dealing with linguistic uncertainty or ambiguity during language processing and how this may differ between healthy individuals and those with language disorders. She is co-advised by Bob Slevc. Outside of the lab, Kelly enjoys hiking and baking new recipes.
ALUMS
NINA HSU
PhD, University of Pennsylvania
NRSA (NIH F32) Post-doctoral Fellow
Current Position: Scientific Liaison at NIH, in the office that administers Obama's BRAIN Initiative
https://sites.google.com/site/ninashsu/
Broadly, I seek to understand the dynamics underlying the functional and neurobiological interplay across multiple cognitive systems. Currently, I am examining the interaction amongst domain-general cognitive control procedures, language processing, and the neurobiological mechanisms that give rise to their coordination. I use conflict adaptation approaches and a variety of behavioral, eye-tracking, and neuroimaging methods to address these issues. When not in lab, you can find me distance running, relishing a good meal, or performing improv. Nina currently works at the National Institutes of Health, after a stint as a AAAS Fellow.
RACHEL ADLER
Ph, D, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
I am interested in the cognitive mechanisms that support language processing. I use methods like eye-tracking to study when and how listeners use contextual information to hone in on a speaker's meaning in real-time. I also study the cognitive effects of longer-term linguistic experiences, such as growing up bilingual. In my free time I like to play board games -- the more absurdly complicated, the better. Rachel was co-advised by Yi Ting Huang, and is currently a data scientist at Bloomberg.
CHRIS HEFFNER
Ph.D., Neuroscience and Cognitive Science in 2017
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University at Buffalo
Chris was co-advised by Rochelle Newman and Bill Idsardi, but was an active collaborator. My research in the Novick lab involves relating speech perception (in particular, word segmentation) to cognitive control. One of my proudest achievements is tying for fourth place in the 2001 Minnesota State Geographic Bee, which led the Minneapolis Star Tribune to describe me as a "plucky fifth-grader".
PhD, 2013 in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
Post-Doc, UIUC
Current Positions: Cognitive Scientist at U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research and Development Center
Visiting Scientist at the Center for Applied Brain and Cognition, Tufts University
Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology, Northeastern University
My work explores how cognitive training, brain stimulation, and aerobic exercise can be used to test causal contributions of executive control on higher-level cognitive tasks, such as real-time language processing, reasoning, and decision making. I use a range of techniques to evaluate this relationship including eye tracking, functional and structural neuroimaging, and performance in virtual environments. I enjoy hiking, rock climbing, and exploring ancient ruins in the Southwest. I also revel in all aspects of culinary art, like seeking out exciting food spots where ever my travels bring me, preparing new dishes at home, stocking my kitchen with any and every gadget, and beefing up on my beer and cheese knowledge!
PhD, 2014 in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science
Current position: Assistant Professor, Auburn University
I am interested in how innate and experience-driven individual differences in cognitive control, the ability to direct attention to relevant information in the face of information-processing conflict, contribute to language processing. My current research examines how the aging cognitive control system affects speech recognition in challenging listening conditions, with the goal of improving communication for our society's growing population of older adults. In my spare time, I enjoy hiking and rock climbing.
UNDERGRAD RAs
NORA LEONARD
I'm a Senior Hearing and Speech major. I'm a member of the HESP Honors Program and completing an undergraduate honors thesis. I'm interested in the way non-linguistic abilities such as working memory and cognitive control affect language comprehension in young children, which is a collaboration between this lab and Dr. Huang's lab. I am a Maryland Summer Scholar. I hope to visit all the National Parks in the U.S. The last two summers, aside from working in UMD research labs, I have gone on camping trips to see all five National Parks in Utah and many others along the East Coast.
MAGGIE KELLEY
I am an undergrad RA in the lab working on a variety of projects, including how bilinguals use lexical tone cues to predict words. I am a Psychology and Hearing and Speech Sciences double major who loves hiking and bad knock-knock jokes.
HANNAH SICHEL
I am a Junior HESP major at UMD. I plan to become a speech-language pathologist and I aspire to work with stroke and traumatic brain injury patients. I work on a project aimed at understanding how listeners interpret irony in real time. I enjoy being a part of Terp Thon, an organization that hosts a 12-hour dance marathon to benefit Children's National Hospital in D.C.
EMY D'ANDREA
Junior Hearing and Speech Sciences major and Human Development minor. I aspire to be an Acute Care Speech-Language Pathologist. I enjoy lacrosse, surfing, and hiking.
BROOKE ROTHMAN
I am junior Hearing and Science major from Fair Lawn, New Jersey. In the lab, I am currently working with Nina Hsu where I help to create scripts and code data for cognitive control tasks. I am looking to pursue a career as a Speech-Language Pathologist, specifically working with children. In the Fall of 2015, I was a TA for Dr. Novick's Psycholinguistics course (HESP 300).
LAUREN EISNER
Lauren has been in RA in our lab since the Spring of 2016. She's currently finishing up her sophomore year as a HESP major, and aspires to become a pediatric speech-language pathologist.
ASHLEY THOMAS
I am a junior/senior Hearing and Speech Sciences major who plans on pursing a combined Masters in Speech-Language Pathology and Ph.D. in Hearing and Speech Sciences after I graduate. In the lab, I work on projects investigating the causal effects of cognitive control on real-time language processing. I was also a TA for Dr. Novick's Psycholinguistics course (HESP 300), and a Maryland Summer Scholar in the lab.