Core Research Group (Funded Posts)
Usha Goswami is Professor of Education, a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge and the Director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education. Prior to moving back to Cambridge in 2003, she was Professor of Cognitive Developmental Psychology at the Institute of Child Health, University College London for 6 years, and before that, she was University Lecturer in Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, 1990-1997. She received her Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Oxford, her topic was reading and spelling by analogy. Her current research interests are the relations between phonology and reading across languages, the role of basic auditory processing in dyslexia and SLI, the perception of rhythm in developmental language disorders, the development of reasoning by analogy in children, and literacy in the deaf.
Dénes Szücs is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education and an honorary research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from Budapest in cognitive electrophysiology. His current research examines the cognitive electrophysiology of normal number processing and arithmetic disabilities (dyscalculia). One of his main interests is the role that the surface format of numbers plays in the processing of numerical information and in the development of number skills. For example, he is exploring whether congenitally blind people rely on similar brain areas in understanding numbers to sighted people. Another main interest is how the human brain interprets numerical errors. In these kinds of experiments subjects carry out simple addition and multiplication problems and then decide whether the supplied results are correct or incorrect. A characteristic brain response, the so-called arithmetic N400, appears in response to errors. A third interest is the neuronal basis of developmental arithmetic disability (dyscalculia). To study this, Denes is comparing the brain responses of arithmetically disabled and normal children.
Martina Huss is a Research Associate on the MRC study Auditory Processing in Dyslexic Children: Behavioural and Neural Investigations. She received her PhD degree in 2004 from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Subsequently, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher for the Medical Research Council in the Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. Martina is interested in auditory perception and the cognitive neuroscience of language. Her current research focus is the influence of auditory processing in developmental dyslexia.
Tim Fosker is a Research Associate on the MRC study Auditory Processing in Dyslexic Children: Behavioural and Neural Investigations. Prior to joining the centre, Tim completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wales, Bangor examining Event-related Potential (ERP) correlates of developmental dyslexia in adults. His current research interests are in ERP correlates of auditory processing in developmentally dyslexic children and the importance of attention to performance on phonological awareness tasks.
Alicia Cruz is a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Holder, funded by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain. She received her Ph.D from the University of Granada, Spain, in 2003, her topic was Phonological Skills and Reading Development in Deaf Children. Alicia is a trained Speech and Language Therapist. Prior to taking up this position, she worked as a Teaching Associate in the Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Jaén, Spain. Her current project focuses on research into developmental dyslexia in Spanish and specifically the interactions between auditory processing and phonological skills.
Victoria Cheah is a Research Assistant on the EU STREP study 'Humans as Analogy-Makers'. She is also a part-time PhD student supervised by Professor Goswami. She received her MPhil in Psychology & Education from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge in 2006. She completed her first degree in medical sciences at the University of Cambridge in 2001. She has worked in Singapore as a special needs teacher for children with intellectual disabilities, as well as in policy development for the special education sector. Vicky is interested in the development of analogical reasoning skills in young children. Her current research focuses on the role of cross-modal correspondences in children's analogical reasoning.