DEV faculty member and program director Letty Naigles was recently featured in UConn Today for her work on parental influence on language acquisition in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The article highlights her recent grant from NIDCD, which will support research on language usage in school age children with ASD. Congrats, Letty!

DEV faculty member and program director Letty Naigles was awarded a new 5-year R01 grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). Her grant is titled “Early Predictors to School Age Language: Individual and Interactional Child and Parent Factors”. Congratulations Letty!

DEV’s newest faculty member Umay Suanda is one of ten recipients of a 6-year James S. McDonnell Foundation’s Understanding Human Cognition Scholar Award. His grant is titled How the Dynamics of Early Interactions Shape Word Learning. Congratulations Umay!

Amanda Mankovich and Shireena McGee were awarded year-long traineeships in the Science of Learning and Art of Communication. These traineeships are part of a National Science Foundation Research Traineeship grant awarded to an inter-disciplinary group of UConn researchers (PI: Jim Magnuson).

 

Emily Yearling was awarded an IBRAiN fellowship from the CT Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences for academic year 2018-2019

Congratulations Amanda, Emily and Shireena!

Congratulations to DEV graduate students Meaghan Perdue and Vivi Tecoulesco on their successful MA defenses this Fall.

Meaghan’s thesis was titled: “Associations Between Cortical Structure and Reading Skills in Beginning Readers “

Vivi’s thesis was titled: “Auditory Brainstem Response and Language in Typically Developing Children and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder”

DEV faculty members Kimberly Cuevas and Nicole Landi were awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor this Fall. Many Congratulations to Kimberly and Nicole on the well-deserved achievement!

 

 

Dr. Umay Suanda has just joined the faculty in the developmental division as a new Assistant Professor. Umay completed his PhD in 2012 at Emory University and then was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Indiana University working with Linda Smith. He is currently funded by a K99 award entitled The Role of Language Experiences on Vocabulary Development:
A Multidimensional, Developmental, and Individual Differences Analysis. Welcome Umay!

Nicole Landi recently received funding from the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) Research Excellence Program (REP), which provides seed funding for investigators conducting innovative research, scholarship, and creative endeavors. Her project, Neural Basis of Text Processing in Specific Reading Comprehension Deficit, will use simultaneous eyetracking and fMRI to investigate how the brain processes text online and how patterns of processing are related to reading comprehension ability. Congratulations Nicole!

 

 

 

In alternating years, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences awards Faculty Excellence in Research and Faculty Excellence in Teaching awards. The recipients of Excellence in Research awards are honored for a research program that has gained national and international distinction and impact in their field of study.

Letty Naigles, developmental division head, received an Excellence in Research award for 2017. Congratulations to Letty!

All congratulations to Meaghan Perdue, who has been selected for a 2017 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. This prestigious award comes with three years of funding. Great work, Meaghan!