Who we are

Andrea MacLeod is a professor in the Communication Sciences and Disorders department and an Associate Dean in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Alberta. 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.

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 PhD student at the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. She is a multilingual Kurdish-Persian-English student working under the supervision of Dr. 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.

Morgane is a Belgian Speech and Language Pathologist. She is in her last year of PhD thesis at the University of Liege, Belgium. She came in the lab for a research stay under the supervision of Dr. MacLeod. Her work focuses on speech development in preschool children and its potential link with orofacial myofunctional development (e.g., breathing, swallowing, chewing). Before starting a PhD, she practiced with children and adults with myofunctional disorders. She speaks French and English.

Kylene is a 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.

Aunya is a Master’s 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 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.

Jana is a bilingual English-French master’s student whose research focuses on the French phonological development of multilingual children across Canada. She is particularly interested in the impact of French Immersion on phonological development. 

Anusha is a Master of Science student in the University of Alberta’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. She is a fluent speaker of Hindi and Punjabi and will be completing a Master’s thesis under the supervision of Dr. MacLeod. Her research interests include language development in multilingual children and the relationships between language and cultural identity. 

Jasmine is a third-year B.Sc. Psychology Honours student at the University of Alberta. She speaks English and Punjabi, and is completing her honours thesis under Dr. MacLeod. Her research interests include bilingualism, language loss, cognitive development, and problem solving.

Jiya is a third year Honours Psychology undergraduate student. She is starting her research journey under the supervision of Dr. Macleod. She is a Hindi-English bilingual and her experiences as a bilingual are the basis of her research interests. She is interested in learning more about how being bilingual affects academic learning.

Maya completed her degree in Speech-language Pathology from the Lebanese University. Her clinical experience is focused on speech and language disorders associated with hearing impairment and cerebral palsy. She is currently a project coordinator at the Multilingual Families Lab. Her areas of interest include the oral language, literacy, and bilingualism. She speaks Arabic, English and French. Maya loves reading, baking, and spending her time in nature.

Saumya is a third year BA student in psychology Honours program. She began volunteering during the first year of her program at a school for children with autism where she developed a library of sign language for the school. To understand bilingualism in a new light she started her role as a Research Assistant at the Multilingual Families Lab . She wants to conduct research on how bilingualism impacts people with autism. Saumya can speak in English, Hindi and Punjabi. She loves travelling and baking.

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!

Samina is a graduate student in the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, at the University of Alberta. Samina recently graduated with her Master of Science (MSc) degree in Public Health: Health Promotion and Sociobehavioural Sciences (2022). Given her natural passion for the social sciences and cultural studies as it pertains to health, Samina has a vibrant interest in the multilingual retention and/or development, difficulties, inclusion, and adjustment of Canadian-born and/or Canadian-raised children from ethnoculturally-diverse im/migrant families.