Nadya Modyanova
Research Interests
- Generative syntactic, semantic and pragmatic language acquisition in typically developing children as well as those with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders, Williams syndrome and specific language impairment
- Genetic, cellular and molecular bases of language and neurodevelopmental disorders
- Evolution of language and parallels between language and other cognitive/biological systems
Academic Background
- Sept. 2009 – Sept. 2011
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. MIT Clinical Research Center. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Children's Hospital Boston. Division of Genetics, Program in Genomics.
Funded in part by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Simons Initiative on Autism and the Brain at MIT. (Sept. 2009-June 2011)
- Sept. 2003 – Sept. 2009
Ph.D. in Neuroscience
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Thesis: Semantic and Pragmatic Language Development in Typical Acquisition, Autism Spectrum Disorders, and Williams Syndrome with Reference to Developmental Neurogenetics of the latter
Advisors: Ken Wexler, Damon Page
Committee Members: Irene Heim, Mriganka Sur
- Sept. 2000 - June 2003
B.A. First Class Honours in Linguistics with Cognitive Science
University College London, Department of Phonetics and Linguistics. London, UK
Colleagues and Collaborators
- Margaret Echelbarger (MIT/University of Kansas) - language development in individuals with autism spectrum disorders
- Xiao Zhou - language acquisition in Chinese
- Christopher Hirsch (MIT) - environmental factors and biological maturation in typical language acquisition, syntax of A-movement
- Alexandra Perovic (MIT/UCL) - language development in individuals with autism spectrum disorders and Williams syndrome
- Tania Ionin (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) - second language acquisition, semantics of definiteness and specificity
- Ioulia Kovelman (MIT/University of Michigan) - neuroimaging of children with specific language impairment
- Charlotte Giessmann (Bremen University) - interaction betwen language and theory of mind
- Laura Kalin (McGill University/UCLA Linguistics) - specific language impairment in spanish-speaking children
- Vanja de Lint (MIT/Utrecht University) - sign language
Teaching
- Abnormal Language (9.56 Fall 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010)
- Introduction to Psychology (9.00 Fall 2004, Spring 2006)
- Language Acquisition (9.57 Fall 2005)
- UROP: Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program