Bio

I am the director of the Action & Brain Lab at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. I serve as Co-Director of the VL2 Research Center alongside Melissa Malzkuhn. I am an Associate Professor in the Ph.D. in Educational Neuroscience (PEN) program and the Science Director of the Motion Light Lab.

I founded the Action & Brain lab in early 2016. Before that, I earned my BA in Psychology from Haverford College and a PhD in Psychology, specializing in Brain & Cognitive Sciences, from Temple University. I completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, working with Dr. Anjan Chatterjee. My research examines how knowledge of sign language changes perception, particularly visual and spatial processing. Since 2018, I have also been developing research-based tools enabling new ways to learn signed languages with emerging technology. This work has focused on developing and assessing signing avatars, ASL learning in immersive environments, and other combinations of emerging tech with sig language.