Dr. Sonali Nag - Symposium Chair

Sonali Nag is a clinical psychologist trained at the National Institute for Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) in India. She is one of the founders of The Promise Foundation , an Indian charity that works, among other areas, in the field of literacy interventions and serves the Foundation as its Associate Director.  She is presently based in the University of York as a Newton International Fellow and is leading two large scale language and reading programmes in Kannada, a language of South India and English. Her work in the area of Learning Disabilities and Dyslexia, has focused on understanding dyslexia, particularly taking into account the unique features of the Indian languages.  Her research interest is particularly in contexts where there are interactions between multiple scripts and multiple languages. Sonali has participated in assignments with the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT), India; the Ministry of Higher Education, Employment and Social Security, Republic of Maldives; the Shulamt, Principality of Leichtenstein and the Ministry of Education, Rwanda.

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                                                                                                                                      Dr. Silke Goebel

Silke Göbel is a Cognitive Neuropsychologist. She received her first degree in Psychology from the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main in Germany in 1999. She then moved to Oxford in the UK where she completed her PhD on the neural basis of number representation. From 2002 to 2005 she was a Junior Research Fellow in Psychology at Jesus College, Oxford. Since 2005 she has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of York, UK. In addition to the neural basis of number processing her research interests include the development of number processing, the relationship between number processing and reading and cross-cultural differences in counting, number processing and arithmetic. This year she has co-edited a special issue of the Journal for Cross-Cultural Psychology on “Cultural Effects on the Mental Number Line.”

Dr. Jyotsna Vaid

Jyotsna Vaid, a professor of experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and women's and gender studies at Texas A&M University, conducts crosslinguistic research on language processing and language and cognition in multiple language users. A major focus of her research has been on the cognitive and neuropsychological repercussions of early vs. late onset of bilingualism. An additional line of inquiry has examined psycholinguistic aspects of alphasyllabaries (Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hangeul), in contrast to alphabetic and morphosyllabic scripts, including visuospatial complexity, phonological and morphological properties, and  directionality.  Since 2009 she is Editor in Chief (with Vivian Cook and Benedetta Bassetti) of the new journal, Writing Systems Research.

Dr. Nandini Chatterjee Singh

Nandini Chatterjee Singh is a cognitive neuroscientist at the National Brain Research Centre in Manesar, Harayana, India.  Her laboratory is focused towards unravelling cortical networks for spoken and written language in typical and atypical populations using a combination of behaviour and functional neuroimaging. 

Dr Ramesh Mishra

Ramesh Kumar Mishra currently is an assistant professor in Cognitive Science at the Centre of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Allahabad University, India. He earned his MA, M.Phil and PhD degrees in Linguistics from University of Delhi. His research interests are in Psycholinguistics, Language-Vision interaction and cognition in illiterates. He has been a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Dalhousie University, Canada and has given invited talks at many Indian and European Universities over the years. He was instrumental in founding the International Journal of Mind, Brain and Cognition where he currently serves as Associate Editor. He also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence and Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics.

Dr. Claire Fletcher Flinn 

Associate Professor, University of Otago, New Zealand

Claire Fletcher-Flinn is an Associate Professor at the University of Otago College of Education, and a registered Educational Psychologist.  Her research interests include the processes of learning to read, early literacy, and dyslexia.  She has worked extensively on the Knowledge Sources theory of reading acquisition, which is unique insofar as it includes the teaching context, and the concept of lexicalised phonological recoding.  She was the recipient of a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Invitation Fellowship, and is currently extending the Knowledge Sources theory with research on hiragana, a non-alphabetic orthography. 

Dr. Kristina Moll

Kristina completed a PhD in 2009 at the University of Salzburg, Austria; her thesis investigated 'Associations and Dissociations of Learning Disorders' and was part of a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund, entitled 'Comorbidity of deficits in reading, spelling, arithmetic and attention: prevalence and neuro-cognitive and genetic basis'.  Kristina has teaching experience and has worked as a clinical psychologist and an occupational therapist in Germany. Kristina started working at the University of York as an Experienced Researcher in the currently ongoing European project called 'Enhancing Literacy Development in European Languages' (ELDEL).  Since June 2011, Kristina is managing the Language for Reading project in York which aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the L4R intervention programme for improving oral language skills in children with oral language weaknesses in Nursery and Reception. The L4R project further aims to investigate if the intervention will help children respond to reading instruction.

Dr. Fiona Duff

Fiona Duff is a Research Fellow at the University of York, UK.  Her research interests lie in understanding the inter-relations between spoken and written language and in devising and evaluating theoretically-motivated interventions that address weaknesses in these skills.  One such language intervention is now being applied to help children with literacy difficulties for whom English is not the home language.  Current projects involve using Randomised Control Trials to assess the effectiveness of combined reading and language interventions for various clinical populations: children with Down syndrome; and children at risk for reading difficulties (either due to pre-school language impairment, or family risk for dyslexia).  As recipient of the British Psychological Society Postgraduate Award, Fiona was seconded to the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in 2009 where she wrote a briefing note for parliamentarians on theoretical and policy issues related to teaching children to read.