I am honored to be nominated to stand for Chair of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL). This community has meant a lot to me, both professionally and personally, and I’m excited about the chance to contribute more. These are some of the things I’d focus on, based on my own experiences, values, and the challenges I see in our field right now
Scientific collaboration without borders
I trained in the UK and now run a lab in Boston. I’m currently collaborating with researchers across the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Australia, China, and beyond. These kinds of international connections have been hugely important in my own career, and I’d love to help others build similar bridges. This feels especially important right now. There’s a real risk of increasing scientific isolation, particularly in the US, and I think we all need to actively push back against that. I’d support more virtual opportunities, e.g. online events, Zoom meetups, one-on-one mentorship conversations, and full hybrid access to annual meetings, so we can stay connected, wherever we are in the world.
Supporting early-career researchers
It’s a particularly tough time to be starting out in science. I’d like SNL to continue doing everything it can to support early-career researchers, not just in spirit, but in practical ways. Grant-writing workshops, mentoring, and opportunities to connect across career stages can make a real difference. I’ve benefited a lot from that kind of support, and I’d like to help make sure others can too.
Bringing neuropsychiatric disorders into the conversation
Language is central to how we understand and relate to others. But many neuropsychiatric conditions that affect language, like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and others, are still underrepresented in language neuroscience. I believe SNL has a lot to offer here. I’d like to help build stronger links between our community and researchers working in this space, so we can learn from each other and further broaden the impact of our work.
Encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration
I believe that some of the most exciting work in our field happens at the edges—where linguistics, cognitive science, clinical research, neuroscience, and computational modeling meet. I’d love to support more of those conversations. I’m especially interested in how shared computational principles show up across different domains—language, memory, vision, when they operate on quite different types of representations. Bringing together people with different perspectives often leads to new and creative ideas.