Profile
Biography
I am an educational neuroscientist in the making who studied Psychology in Greece, went to Scotland to continue studying, decided to move to the USA to chase my academic ‘American Dream’ and I am now based in England. In 2010, I received my PhD, funded by the Greek State Scholarships, from The University of Edinburgh where I continued to work for 2 years as a research assistant in Moray House School of Education. In 2012, the European Commission funded my post-doc research work for 3 years via the Marie Sklodowska-Curie International Outgoing Fellowships scheme, part of which I spent at Haskins Laboratories, Yale University.
Departmental roles
I am a Senior Lecturer in the Psychology in Education, the UG Pastoral Lead and Deputy chair of the in-house Ethics Committee. I am affiliated with Haskins Laboratories (Yale University) and the Rudolf Berlin Centre (Amsterdam).
Research
Overview
I am interested in typical and atypical written language (namely dyslexia) from a cognitive, developmental and psychosocial perspective. My research to date aims at answering the following broad questions:
- How do typical children and those with development dyslexia learn to read and spell?
- Can difficulties with implicit learning (ie our ability to pick up regularities from our environment incidentally) explain some of difficulties children with dyslexia face?
- Why do children with literacy difficulties have poorer socio-emotional and functional outcomes?
In parallel, I am interested in how the answers to these questions can be used in the development and application of targeted and tailored interventions.
Projects
2017-present: Lexilogy-English: The effects of a pilot online computer training programme focusing on morphological knowledge on primary school poor English readers and spellers. In partnership with Hester Hoette (Lexilogy, https://lexilogy.com) and Dr Jurgen Tijms (University of Amsterdam; Rudolf Berlin Centre).
2017: "The things that make me different are the things that make me" (Winnie the Pooh): Exploring risk and protective factors of resilience in children with reading difficulties.
2017-present: Changing Lives of Adults with Dyslexia: screening for reading difficulties among vulnerable job seekers. In partnership with Changing Lives organisation (https://www.changing-lives.org.uk) and York And District Dyslexia Association (YADDA) (https://yadda.org.uk)
2012-2015: Implicit learning in specific developmental disorders (ILSDD) http://honey-bee.wixsite.com/ilearn-project
Research group(s)
Grants
- 2016-2018 Research Priming Grant, Education, UoY (£2,500)
- 2012-2015 Marie Sklodowska-Curie IOF, European Commission (€ 271,950)
- 2008-2009 Wingate Foundation Grant (£3,600)
- 2005-2009 PhD Grant, Greek Foundation for State Scholarships (€ 50,000)
Available PhD research projects
I accept PhD students interested in the following research areas and related fields:
- Neurobiology of reading across languages
- Neurocognitive bases of Developmental Dyslexia
- Development and individual differences of implicit/statistical learning
- Diagnostic procedures in Developmental Dyslexia