People

Researchers

Dr. Robin Thompson
Dr. Thompson is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK and the director of the Multimodal, Multilingual Language Processing Lab, (M2L2). Much of her research to date has focused on the relationship between language and modality for both signed and spoken languages. This includes research areas such as the role of iconicity and multiple information channels (e.g., hands, mouth, eyes) for language processing and acquisition. She is also interested in bilingualism and  reading.

Research students

Freya Watkins
Freya is a Psychology PhD student at UoB. Her main research interests are the role of the visuospatial modality in sign language processing and acquisition, particularly in fellow hearing signers. Her current project focuses on the role of sign orientation in native and L2 BSL acquisition. She has also done work on handedness, multimodal multilingual integration and visuospatial cognition in bimodal bilinguals.

Kate Groves
Kate is a part time PhD student at UoB and is based in the Netherlands. Her research project focuses on language attitudes of signing Deaf students in the Netherlands, UK, & US toward written/spoken and signed languages. She has experience teaching English using bilingual methods to Deaf signers in the US and Italy. She is a Deaf native English speaker and is fluent in ASL, LIS & Italian. Her Dutch is good enough to somewhat lipread her toddler daughter.

Xiao Wei (Monica)
Monica is a Psychology PhD student at UoB. Her current research project focuses on the role of motor learning in sign language L2 acquisition. Previously she participated in research on lexical co-activation in bimodal bilinguals and language ability tests. She is an (unofficially) recognized Hong Kong Sign Language interpreter, and she is really trying her best to learn British Sign Language now.

Former Students, Now PhDs!

Dr Alper Kumcu

Alper completed his PhD in December, 2018. YAY!! His thesis was titled: Looking for Language in Space: Spatial Simulations in Memory for Language.

Dr Anneline Huck
Anneline completed her PhD at City University, London in 2016.  Her thesis is titled: The influence of word frequency and contextual predictability on eye movements in sentence reading in aphasia.

 

Research assistants

Pavundeep Johal
Pav is an Engineering undergraduate student at UoB. He is deaf and from a family of oral deaf and hearing people. Pav is currently working as a research assistant on a number of deaf-related research projects. 

Zoë McWhinney
Zoë is an undergraduate student at the University of Birmingham. She is a Deaf native BSL user from a Deaf family. Previously she interned at the Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre at UCL, and is now assisting the researchers in the M2L2 lab on several sign language-related projects.

Melissa Wessel
Melissa was an undergraduate student at the University of Wolverhampton. She is a Deaf native German Sign Language user with Deaf parents and lived in England for about 3.5 years. She is now back in Germany but still assisting on sign language-related projects.