Meet the Team

The work we do in PEN Lab is highly interdisciplinary and our research benefits from the diverse interests and expertise of our members. We regularly attract graduate students and research assistants aspiring to careers in speech-language pathology, special education, psychological services and academia.

Principal Investigator

Lindsay Harris, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Educational Psychology
Co-director, Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language and Literacy

Google Scholar
Research Gate
Academia

Lindsay Harris received her Ph.D. degree in cognitive psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 2014. Prior to earning her Ph.D., she was an English teacher in Misato, Japan and the New York City Public Schools. Harris studies spoken and written language learning and processing from neurocognitive and developmental perspectives. Her current line of research, funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Eye Institute, investigates the ways in which visual experience affects word learning and vocabulary development in children ages 5-14.

NIU Faculty Affiliates

• Allison Gladfelter, Ph.D., School of Clinical and Developmental Sciences
• Molly Pasley, Ph.D., Department of Special and Early Education

Graduate Students

• Muath Al Luhayyan, Educational Research, Evaluation and Assessment M.S. Program
• Brad Blair, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Daniel Curtis, Educational Research, Evaluation and Assessment M.S. Program
• Chelsea Haley, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Johnnie Jones, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Regina Koons, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Tremaine Love, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Leah Read, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Joseph Rossi, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Dawn Soto, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program

Research Assistant

• Ellie Carter, Communicative Disorders B.S. Program

External Collaborators

• Elyzia Powers, Minot State University, USA
• Simone Torresin, University of Trento, Italy
• Rebecca Treiman, Washington University, St. Louis, USA

Recent Alumni

• Jasmin Aviles, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University
• Savannah Bryant, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Eastern Illinois University
• Aliyah Buchelly, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Saint Xavier University
• Emerson Gaines, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University
• Esther Gallegos, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Saint Xavier University
• Daisy Guerrero, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University
• Jessica Meza, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University

Lab alumni, please keep in touch! Contact us at pen-lab@niu.edu to let us know what you’re up to!