I am a speech and language therapist, specialized in acquired language and communication impairments. During my PhD I conducted research on functional communication, i.e. everyday language use, in people with post-stroke aphasia.

As a postdoc at the Donders Centre for Cognition, I am involved in the further establishment of the Adaptive Language for Healthy Brain and Society research consortium, led by prof. Asli Özyürek, prof. James McQueen and dr. Vitória Piai. The aim of this consortium is to address societally relevant questions about the flexible, adaptive language use in everyday life, specifically focusing on diverse populations with internal and/or external language and communication difficulties, such as people with acquired brain damage, people with hearing impairments and people with reduced language fluency, such as second language learners.

My long term research interests are to gain a better fundamental understanding of interactive, multimodal, real-world language use and how different impairments (i.e. linguistic and/or cognitive) can affect this level of functioning. My aim is to translate this knowledge to improve assessment and rehabilitation of functional communication in clinical populations. I am interested in the application of technological innovations to address these fundamental and clinical questions.

Latest publications
Measures of functional, real-world communication for aphasia: a critical review
The importance of situated language use for aphasia rehabilitation