Radboud University Welcomes New Professor of Cognition of Multilingualism
Kristin Lemhöfer has been appointed professor of Cognition of multilingualism at Radboud University’s Faculty of Social Sciences from 1 September.
Lemhöfer’s research focuses on the neurocognition of bilingualism and multilingualism. How does learning multiple languages work? And once learned, how are two or more languages handled within the same brain? Using various behavioural, electrophysiological and imaging techniques, Lemhöfer looks at phenomena related to grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation of newly learned languages.
‘I want to find out more about why people differ so much in how and how well they learn a new language,’ Lemhöfer said. ‘I want to do this by looking not only at quantitative differences (they do something more or less strongly than others), but especially at qualitative differences (they do something really different from others).’ Recently, Lemhöfer’s research is focusing more on memory; in what ways does learning a second language make use of the different memory systems we possess? And – a very understudied topic in cognitive neuroscience – to what extent do people differ in this?
About Kristin Lemhöfer
Kristin Lemhöfer (Bonn, 1972) received her master’s degree in Ergonomics from University College London in 1996 and completed her master’s in Psychology in Aachen 3 years later. In 2004, she obtained her PhD from Radboud University with a thesis on visual word recognition during reading in bilinguals and multilinguals. Her academic career continued with a postdoctorate at the University of Leipzig and later at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Since 2008, she has been working at the Donders Centre for Cognition.
She has also been awarded a number of grants, including an NWO Veni grant in 2007, an NWO Vidi & Aspasia grant in 2013 and most recently a Consolidator grant from the European Research Council. She also retains positions as section head of Psycholinguistics within the Donders Centre for Cognition and as section editor for the journal ‘Cognition’.