Who we are

Andrea MacLeod is a professor at the University of Alberta, where she is the Chair of the Communication Sciences and Disorders department. Her research has focused on the speech and language abilities of bilingual children and adults. She works with local stakeholders to better understand the language development of immigrant children in inner city schools, to support early language development of refugee children, and to train clinicians and educators in providing support for these children.

Catrine Demers is a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. MacLeod. She practiced as a speech-language pathologist before completing her Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Ottawa. She is a French-English bilingual and her research focuses on collaborative and interdisciplinary knowledge translation of evidence-based practice to support quality and equity of services in education and health care.

Sabah Meziane is a PhD candidate in speech-language pathology at the University of Montreal. Her doctoral project is on the development of phonology in bilingual children. Her main research interests are bilingualism, the plurilingual approach, knowledge transfer, and social responsibility.

Geneviève is a French Speech and Language Pathologist. She practiced with children and adults with speech disorders. Her clinical experience has led to a major interest in speech. She pursued a Research Master’s degree in Language Sciences. She is currently completing a PhD with Dr. MacLeod, Dr. Shiller, Dr. Loevenbruck and Dr. Vilain. She is working on assessment of children with Speech Sound Disorders. She created the EULALIES assessment tool for French-speaking Speech and Language Pathologists.

Carolina is a doctoral student in Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Alberta, under the supervision of Dr. MacLeod. She completed a master’s degree at the University of Concepción, Chile, in Applied Linguistics. She practiced as a speech-language pathologist before beginning her PhD. Her current research investigates the audiovisual integration of speech and its impact on language development. Areas of interest: speech perception, speech production, phonology, bilingualism.

Wendy is a PhD student in Rehabilitation Science at the University of Alberta, working under the supervision of Dr. MacLeod. She completed her B.A in Linguistics and Sociology from the University of Ghana and her M.A. in Linguistics from the University of British Columbia. Her area of research interests include phonology, child language acquisition and speech disorders. Her M.A thesis focused on phonological development in typically developing children learning to speak Akan (a Kwa language) spoken in her home country, Ghana. Her current research focuses on developing a culturally appropriate tool for clinical assessment of child phonology in Akan. When she is not thinking about phonological development, she spends her time listening to country music and classical hymns.

Negin is a first year PhD student at the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. She is a multilingual Kurdish-Persian-English student working under the supervision of Professor MacLeod. Before starting her PhD, she had been working as a lecturer and speech and language pathologist at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. She has learned to speak Azeri while she was living in Tabriz, Iran. Her main research interest is language, especially phonology, development of bilingual Kurdish-Persian and Azeri-Persian speaking children.

Kylene is a 2nd year Masters student at the School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at the University of Montreal, under the supervision of Dr. MacLeod and Dr. Rezzonico. She is completing her thesis on vocabulary development in bilingual children who speak a minority language. She speaks English, French and Japanese as well as understands Tagalog. Areas of interest: bilingualism, minority language development, environmental influences on language development.

Émilie is a second year Speech-Language Pathology student in the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Alberta. She is completing a thesis under Dr. MacLeod concurrently with her program, as well as working as a Graduate Research Assistant in the Multilingual Families Lab. She is bilingual in French and English and is passionate about providing evidence-based research about diverse populations to practicing clinicians. When she’s not working, Émilie loves to cook, dance, and spend time in the mountains with her dog.

Aunya is a first year Masters student in the department of Communication Sciences Disorders at the University of Alberta. She is an English-French bilingual and is completing her thesis under Dr. Macleod. Her research focuses on bilingual speech production in French Immersion students.

Natalie is a 1st year Master’s student in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Alberta. She is currently working on a Dual Language Stimulation program run in Edmonton, Alberta, and will be completing a thesis under the supervision of Dr. MacLeod. Her research interests include factors which prevent language-loss and promote healthy bilingual development (both quantitative measure of language skill and personal feelings of belonging to a language community), as well as how the experience of immigration and changing language-environments interacts with those factors.

Rita is a 1st year Masters student in the Department of Communication Science Disorders at the University of Alberta. She is currently working on her clinical research project within the dual language stimulation program. She is interested in the immigrant experience relating to language loss, and the conservation of culture and identity associated with dual language learning support. Rita speaks English, French, and Arabic.

Farah is in her last year of her Undegraduate degree in the Faculty of Science at the University of Alberta. She is currently a Research Assistant in the Multilingual Families Lab. Her research interests include examining parenting blogs and forums to analyze what concerns parents have when they have children with speech delays as well as the difficulties that occur when trying to raise kids with multiple languages. She speaks English, and understands Urdu and Gujarati. Her interests include travelling and trying out new coffee shops!

Claire is a first year Speech-Language Pathology student in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Alberta. She is a Research Assistant in the Multilingual Families Lab.