Principal Investigator
 |
Emily Myers, Professor, Lab PIDepartment of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences I’m interested in the processes that allow a listener to map the speech signal to meaning, how these processes are instantiated in the brain, and how these processes break down in cases of language disorder. I received my Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from Brown University in 2005. My primary appointment is in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, with a joint appointment in Psychological Sciences. I also serve as co-director (with Inge-Marie Eigsti) of the NIH-funded T32 training program, CNC-CT, which supports predoctoral and postdoctoral scholars studying the cognitive neuroscience of communication. My current CV. See Research and Publications page for downloads/pdfs. Office: Phillips Communication Sciences Building 216 Contact: emily.myers@uconn.edu |
Senior Lab Members
 |
Holly Zaharchuk is a postdoctoral researcher in the LAB Lab. In this role, she studies what makes someone a good listener. More specifically, she uses neural and behavioral methods to study how right and left temporal brain regions contribute to speech perception, with the goal of understanding how therapeutic interventions might recruit these areas in the successful remediation of stroke. Overall, she is interested in learning how the perceptual system adapts to variation and change. Before coming to UConn, Holly completed her Ph.D. and M.S. in Psychology and Language Science with Dr. Janet van Hell in the Bilingualism and Linguistic Diversity Lab at Penn State, where she studied accented speech processing. She received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Chicago. In between, she worked as a financial analyst at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Washington, DC, where she worked on language access and fair lending initiatives. |
 |
Andrew Collins is a postdoctoral researcher working with Dr. Myers. Before coming to the LAB lab, he was a neurolinguist working with sentence processing in healthy second language learners and multilinguals and people with aphasia following a stroke or dementia. He completed his B.A. in Linguistics at the University of Vermont, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Linguistics working with Dr. Alison Gabriele and Dr. Rob Fiorentino in the Second Language Acquisition and Processing lab and the Neurolinguistics and Language Processing lab at the University of Kansas. He also completed a postdoc working with Dr. Stephanie Grasso on a clinical trial for people with primary progressive aphasia in the Multilingual Aphasia and Dementia Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. He studies how the brain is able to encode, acquire, and process grammatical features in multiple languages, and how these mechanisms break down as a result of brain damage. In the LAB lab, he examines how morphosyntactic knowledge and the acoustic cues interact to guide language processing in individuals with and without brain damage. |
 |
Hannah Mechtenberg is a Ph.D. student in Psychology. Her past research interests focused on the role of the basal ganglia during visual category learning. She is currently exploring how ambiguity at multiple levels (e.g., phoneme, word, sentence meaning, talker, etc.) is noticed and dealt with by the brain. She uses a mixture of behavioral, eyetracking (pupillometry), and neural methods paired with naturalistic speech samples to find some answers. She received a B.S. in Neuroscience from Colorado State University in 2017, came to the LAB Lab as a lab manager in 2018, and received her M.S. from UConn in 2022. |
 |
Naomi Sellers is a Ph.D. student is Psychology who is interested in how input prediction and language error processing offer ways to study the intersection between language production and comprehension, and in how these processes vary across individuals. With a desire for clinical application, she wonders if language errors could give unique insights not only as a bridge between production and comprehension, but also as a bridge between normative and impaired language processing. She received a B.A. in Linguistics and in English from Regis University in 2018. |
 |
Portia Washington is a Ph.D. student in Psychology who is interested in how both auditory and written language comprehension are affected after individuals experience brain injuries, particularly strokes. She hopes to explore the ongoing role of neuroplasticity during the later stages of post-stroke recovery. As a McNair alum she is passionate about pursuing culturally responsive questions, and serving the greater community through research. She received a B.S. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2021, where she worked on syntax and bilingual processing. |
 |
Meghan Baer, MS, CCC-SLP is a first year doctoral student who received her master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from Emerson College in 2022. She has since worked in hospital and outpatient settings with a special interest in rehabilitation for individuals with aphasia. She is excited to join the LAB lab to support research improving communication outcomes and quality of life for people with acquired brain injuries. |
Undergraduate Research Assistants
 |
Anna Guerette is a junior majoring in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and minoring in Human Development and Family Sciences. She is interested in a variety of language disorders, including aphasia, apraxia, and dyslexia, and understanding how these conditions impact communication. She wants to learn more about how neurological processes in the brain influence language perception, processing, and recovery. After graduating, Anna plans to attend graduate school to pursue a master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology. |
 |
Lindsey Weiler is a junior in the Honors Program, with a double major in Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences and Cognitive Science. She is interested in the intersection of the two fields: specifically, how the human brain processes language and extracts meaning in both typical and atypical populations. After graduation, she plans to pursue a research career studying communication sciences and disorders. |
 |
Kylie Pollard is a junior majoring in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and minoring in Human Developmental and Family Sciences. She is interested in understanding how the brain processes language and how communication can be affected by different communication disorders. Kylie has experience as a CNA/caregiver, and she is passionate about volunteering and working with people. After graduating, Kylie plans to attend graduate school for Speech Language Pathology. |
 |
Jessica Graham is a sophomore majoring in Cognitive Science with a minor in American Sign Language. She is interested in mental health and the brain as a whole, specifically impacts of brain injuries and disorders, brain imaging techniques and pathways to help treat various neurological disorders. Following graduation, she plans to attend medical school to pursue a career as a neurologist. |
 |
Libby Wall is a junior in the Honors program majoring in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. She is interested in how communication disorders affect individuals of varying ages. I hope to learn more about how different neuroimaging technologies are used to understand how the brain is involved in the speech process. After graduation I plan to attend graduate school for a master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology.
|