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 Allied Health and Communicative Disorders
• Molly Pasley, Ph.D., Department of Special and Early Education

Graduate Students

• Brad Blair, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Chelsea Haley, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Tremaine Love, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program
• Dawn Soto, Educational Psychology Ph.D. Program

Research Assistants

• Savannah Bryant, Communicative Disorders/Deafness B.S. Program
• Aliyah Buchelly, Communicative Disorders/Psychology B.S. Program
• Ellie Carter, Communicative Disorders B.S. Program
• Esther Gallegos, Communic ative Disorders /Gerontology/Rehabilitation Counseling B.S. Program
• Sydney Regez, Communicative Disorders/Special Education Foundations B.S. Program

External Collaborators

• Elyzia Powers, Minot State University
• Rebecca Treiman, Washington University, St. Louis

Alumni

• Jasmin Aviles, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University
• Marissa Bamberger
• Kimberly Dotseth, Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind
• Katherine Frank
• Emerson Gaines, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University
• Daisy Guerrero, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University
• Nosheen Gul
• Alicia LaRouech, Easter Seals DuPage and Fox Valley
• Iwona Lech, LanguageMania
• Ailing Li, Yunnan Minzu University
• Luis Lopez, Journeys Community Center
• Alexandria Mayer
• Jessica Meza, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University
• Alicia Moore, Speech-Language Pathology Master’s Program, Northern Illinois University
• Arianne Sevillano, Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind
• Gracie Strohm, Sweet Peas Therapy
• Sean Tikkun, North Carolina Central University

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