Marissa A. Barrera, MS, TSHH, CCC-SLP

Hi. My name is Marissa A. Barrera and I am an ASHA certified speech-language pathologist and third year doctoral student in the Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences Department at the CUNY Graduate Center. In 2003-2005, I
was involved in research examining noise-induced induced hearing loss and NYC subway train conductors. Presently, my primary research interests include word-finding deficits in various neurological diseases (Multiple Sclerosis, Primary progressive aphasia, Parkinsons Disease, etc.), cognitive-communication disorders, evaluation and treatment of aphasia, and working and short-term memory deficits.

Professionally, I have worked in both acute and subacute clinical settings specializing in the neurorehabilitation of communication and swallowing disorders. In addition to my doctoral studies, I mentor and supervise graduate speech-language pathology students, operate two private practices,
and teach "Acquired Motor Speech and Swallowing Disorders", in the Communication Sciences Department at Hunter College, CUNY, where I am an adjunct instructor.

Peggy Conner

¡Hola! As a bilingual speech-language therapist I feel privileged to be honing my skills in Dr. Loraine Obler's Neurolinguistics Lab, learning from such talented colleagues who come from diverse and many from multilingual backgrounds. My training and ASHA certification in speech-language pathology began at Ithaca College and continued at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The years I studied and worked abroad in Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and England helped broaden my perspective on languages and cultures. Now, at the doctoral level, the research focus of my dissertation is verbal word learning and dyslexia. In addition, topics that interest me include language in aging, aphasia, second language acquisition, brain organization in bilinguals, and lexical access and retrieval. I welcome the opportunity to network with colleagues who have mutual research interests.

Hia Datta

Hi! I am Hia Datta. I completed my Bachelor's and Master’s degrees in Speech Pathology and Audiology from the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, India. Currently I am working towards my doctoral degree at the Speech and Hearing Sciences Department here at the Graduate Center.
My research interests lie in adult neurolinguistics and bilingualism. I am currently working on a project entitled "Testing theories of agrammatism in Kannada" with Dr Loraine K. Obler and Dr Pratibha Karanth, Professor, M. V. Shetty Institute of Speech and Hearing Mangalore, India. We are examining how the syntactic structure of the language Kannada (e.g. the high density of inflections in the language) affects the appearance of agrammatism in its speakers. In so doing, we are attempting to distinguish between cognitive-neuropsychological and linguistic theories of agrammatism.

I am also working in Dr. Valerie Shafer’s developmental neurolinguistics lab learning how to use event related potentials.
Brain and language is my passion and I hope to go far with it!

JungMoon Hyun

An neong ha se yo (that’s Korean for ‘Hello’)! My name is JungMoon Hyun and I am a doctoral student in the Speech and Hearing Sciences Department at the CUNY Graduate Center.
My main areas of research interests are in bilingualism, language changes in normal aging and neurogenic disorders. Studying and doing research in New York, a big city with a melting pot population, is so exciting. The Graduate Center, in particular, makes this even more attractive as courses offered are well structured and opportunities to work with outstanding professors are available. Furthermore, I am really happy to be in the Neurolinguistics Lab, where fellow students are very nice, understanding, smart, and always willing to help each other. When not doing research or studying, my interests include movies, eating exotic cuisine, and traveling whenever possible.

YoungMi Park

Youngmi Park received her Bachelor’s degree from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea in English/French Language and Literature and her Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology at Hunter College, NY.

She is currently a first level doctoral student at the Graduate Center and a recipient of the CUNY Enhanced Chancellor’s Fellowship. Her research interests are lexicon and comprehension in normal aging, agrammatism, language attrition and code-switching in late bilinguals. She is currently working with Dr. Obler and other lab members on lexical gender learning project.

Youngmi is an ASHA certified speech-language pathologist, who extensively has worked with adults with neurogenic communication and swallowing disorders. She also teaches undergraduate courses in the Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences Department at Lehman College, NY. Email: youngmi.park1@gmail.com.

Jason Rosas

Jason Rosas, M.S., CCC-SLP is a second-year student in the Ph.D. program at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, within the program of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. He received his Bachelor's degree in Psychology with Honors from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology from Columbia University. He is a licensed Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist (Spanish-English). Jason works as a Bilingual Speech Language Pathologist at the Beth Israel Medical Center and has recently served as an Adjunct Professor & Clinical Supervisor at Long Island University - Brooklyn. He has had extensive field experience working with a variety of bilingual populations from early intervention to geriatric with specializations in bilingual language disorders, literacy development, and swallowing and feeding disorders. He has also received certification in the Orton-Gillingham multi-sensory approach to reading instruction. His current interests are in speech processing, literacy development, and bilingual language-learning across the life-span. E-mail: jrosas@gc.cuny.edu

Amy Vogel

My name is Amy Vogel.
I am happy to be a volunteer in Dr. Obler's laboratory, which is an exciting and engaging experience for me. Academically, I am an undergraduate student at CUNY-Hunter College, where I am finishing my coursework in my English and Special Honors majors. The areas that I am interested in include the study of historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, and theoretical syntax. In my future coursework, I would like to work on finding overlaps between these areas in order to explain language acquisition and language change.

JungMee Yoon

Jungmee Yoon is a level1 doctoral student at CUNY Graduate Center. She discovered her passion for communication disorders while working with special needs children as a preschool teacher. She received her B.A in Geography from Sungshin Women’s University, her M.A. in Early Childhood Education from Indiana University. Her main area of research interest lies in the study of typical and atypical language development in bilingual children, and she is also interested in determining how adults’ language processing is like. She has been involved in research of Executive Functions in sentence processing and lexical gender learning in this lab. She brings her unique perspective to this lab based on her various backgrounds. Email address: 2jungmee@gmail.com

Visiting Scholars to the Neurolinguistics Laboratory

2009 Veronica Morena, University of Valencia
2006 Anat Stavans, Hebrew Univeristy and Beit Beryl College, Israel.
2005 – 2008 Seija Pekkala, Helskini University, Finland
2004 Alessandra Riccardi, Universita per Stranieri, Perugia, Italy
Ruth Berman, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Anne Aimola Davies, Australian National University
2003 Jessica Cancila, Universita per Stranieri, Perugia, Italy
2001 Prathibha Karanth, Shetty Institute, Mangalore, India
1987 Pirkko Kukkonen, Helsinki University, Finland

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