Profile

I am a researcher in experimental psychology at UCL, where I work with children and adults to look at how we use information about the world in language learning. Out of work, I like to go to the cinema and read books, and I do a lot of baking (and, consequently, eating). I like to swim, which I mostly do in the swimming pool, but I always enjoy a trip up to Scotland to swim in a cold loch!

My research looks at how language has adapted to be learnt and used by children in language learning and by adults over longer, evolutionary timescales. I focus not just on speech, but how the body might also help us to communicate with each other, and how we can use language to create a link between the things we can see and feel in the real world and the ideas we want to communicate in our heads.

The work I do in my job means I get to practice lots of skills. I have to read a lot of scientific material, to stay up to date on the literature. I get to write papers, so that I can share my research with the scientific community. I design and run experiments, often which involve filming participants doing different language-related tasks. On some days, I travel round London to run experiments with parents and children in people’s homes.

I use the programming language Python to shape and analyse my data, and draw graphs that I can use to show people my results. I also get to do a lot of talking, either in teaching students or giving presentations to other researchers.