Dr. Lori J. P. Altmann, Ph.D.
University of Florida

Dr. Altmann is the principal investigator of the Language over the Lifespan Lab. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) at UF. She is also affiliated with the VA RR&D Brain Rehabilitation and Research Center at the North Florida-South Georgia VA Medical Center and is coordinator of the UF Language and Brain Interest group.

Dr. Altmann is a neurolinguist who is fascinated by the interaction between cognitive processes (such as memory and attention) and language production and by how changes in brain structures can affect both of these.

Sharon Antonucci, Ph.D.
New York University

Sharon M. Antonucci is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. Dr. Antonucci's research focuses on the neural substrates of language processing in adults. The work in her laboratory combines MRI brain imaging with behavioral language assessment and treatment. Current projects include examining how damage to specific regions of the brain can affect word retrieval, as well as how understanding of these brain-behavior relationships can better inform the development of treatments for word retrieval impairments. Dr. Antonucci is a member of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association (ASHA), ASHA Special Interest Division 2: Neurophysiologic and Neurogenic Speech and Language Disorders, the International Neuropsychological Society, and is an associate member of the Academy of Neurologic Communication Sciences and Disorders. She also holds ASHA clinical certification and is a licensed speech-language pathologist in New York State.

Dr. Antonucci was pleased to be the co-chair of the National Aphasia Association Speaking Out! 2008 Conference, which was co-sponsored by the NYU/Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Wind Cowles, Ph.D.
University of Florida

Wind Cowles (Ph.D. University of California, San Diego) is a linguist with an additional affiliation at the McKnight Brain Institute. She is also the coordinator for LIN 3010: Intro to Linguistics. Her research focuses on the interaction of information structure and language comprehension and production. She is currently doing research on the effects of topic and focus on a speaker's choice of syntactic structure, and on how discourse structure effects the processing of pronouns and other co-referential nouns.

Evangelia G. Chrysikou, Ph.D.
University of Pennsylvania

Panteion University of Athens Greece; B.A. in Psychology
Temple University; Ph.D. in Cognitive & Experimental Psychology
Research Interests: I am interested in the neural bases of semantic knowledge and goal-oriented action, with emphasis on human problem solving and innovative tool use in everyday tasks.
Research in Progress: My current projects involve behavioral, neuroimaging, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and neuropsychological studies on the flexibility of human semantic knowledge during the generation of common and alternative uses for everyday objects.

Murray Grossman, M.D., Ed.D.
University of Pennsylvania

Research Interests: Evaluating the cognitive and physiological basis for language and communicative processing in humans
Research Techniques: Computer testing; structural imaging with MRI; functional imaging with fMRI; pharmacologic studies
Research Summary: Language processing skills such as sentence comprehension and word meaning are complex tasks that involve multiple cognitive and linguistic components. There are specific linguistic computations that must be performed, such as constructing a phrase level description of an utterance and looking up the meaning of individual words in semantic memory. In addition, there are related cognitive procedures that contribute to language processing such as retaining a transient mental representation of a sentence in a short-term memory buffer while it is being analyzed and using working memory and inhibitory control to manage multiple, competing, and possibly ambiguous meanings within a message. Cognitive processes such as these must be executed in a temporally organized fashion. We develop tasks that assess specific components of complex language and cognitive processes in individuals with neurological diseases including Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal degeneration, and Parkinson's disease. Similar tasks are administered to healthy young adults and healthy seniors during the monitoring of regional cerebral activity with BOLD fMRI, and we study patients under similar conditions to understand the neural basis for their difficulties.

Jacob Kean, Ph.D.
University of Indiana

Rehabilitation neuroscience with research interests in early cognitive recovery from traumatic brain injury, stroke, and other acquired brain injuries.

Nadine Martin, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Temple University

Nadine Martin, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Temple University. She received her B.A. from Hofstra University in 1974 and her M.Ed degree in Speech and Language Pathology from Northeastern University in 1975. She started working with Dr. Eleanor M. Saffran at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Neurology at Temple University in 1982 and then completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology at Temple University in 1987. She became an Assistant Professor of Neurology (Research) in 1991 and then Associate Professor of Neurology (Research) at Temple University School of Medicine in 1997. Dr. Martin is currently serves as the Director of the newly dedicated Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

Jean Neils-Strunjas, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
University of Cincinnati

Jean Neils-Strunjas is a Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, with a joint appointment in the Neuroscience Program. She received her Bachelor's degree from the Pennsylvania State University, and her Master's and Doctoral Degrees from Case Western Reserve University . Her research interests include the study of language and cognition in healthy adults and children and those with acquired neurogenic communication disorders. In particular, Dr. Neils-Strunjas studies the cognitive processes and neural substrates that support written language and verbal naming, and the nature and treatment of language impairments associated with stroke, traumatic brain injury and progressive neurological disease. Her behavioral research is complemented by neuroimaging studies that examine lesion location and brain activation during language and cognitive tasks using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In addition to classroom teaching, Dr. Neils-Strunjas works with students in the context of independent studies, directing master's theses and doctoral dissertations. She also teaches several seminar classes designed to introduce doctoral students to grant writing and publication of research.

Dr. Neils-Strunjas has served in several leadership roles including as interim associate dean in the College of Allied Health Sciences, as a member of a team that developed a national website on genetics, and as director of undergraduate studies in her department. She is a member of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association and of the International Neuropsychological Society.

Jonathan Peelle, Ph.D.
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge

I'm currently a postdoctoral fellow with Matt Davis at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England. I make use of behavioral and neuroimaging methods to study speech and language processing in the human brain. I am especially interested in how changes in brain structure due to healthy aging or neurodegenerative disease impact neural recruitment.

Christopher Ramey, Ph.D.
Drexel University

My specialization and interests are in cognitive psychology, the psychology of language, creativity, and philosophical psychology (e.g., phenomenology and neuroethics).

A primary way in which we understand our world is through metaphors (e.g., the mind is a computer, the mind is the brain, the mind is a blank slate). Even the idea that mind is intracranial involves implicitly invoking the metaphor of a container. There has been an increasing focus in cognitive science as to how metaphors are fundamental to understanding language, cognition, and human behavior. In this sense, metaphors are not merely linguistic ornament and the purview of the humanities. I am currently investigating the importance and pervasiveness of a variety of these implicit metaphors.