Janet F. Werker

PhD, BA, MA

Affiliate Investigator, BC Children's Hospital
University Killam Professor and Canada Research Chair, Division of Arts, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia

My research focuses on describing and understanding the critical first steps in infancy that launch the process of language acquisition. Using both behavioral and neuroimaging tasks, I study infants (from birth) and young children to reveal the perceptual biases humans have at the beginning of life, how perception is supported by motor processes, and how those are sculpted through maturation, experience, to support later language acquisition and literacy. For more information about my research and a full CV, please visit infantstudies.psych.ubc.ca/director/.