Kaja Jasinska

Dr Jasińska is an assistant professor in the Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development and the scientific director of the Brain Organization for Language and Literacy Development (BOLD) Laboratory.

She studies the neural mechanisms that support language, cognitive and reading development across the lifespan using a combination of behavioural, genetic and neuroimaging research methods. Her research aims to understand how early life experiences (e.g. language exposure) can change the brain's capacity for language and learning, with a focus on understanding development in environments with poverty-related risk (eg rural communities; low- and middle-income countries).

Dr Jasińska's work uses innovative portable neuroimaging techniques to study brain development in understudied, low-resource settings, leveraging the latest tools of cognitive neuroscience to advance our understanding of global child development. Her work develops and evaluates interventions to support children's learning and development, focusing on literacy. Dr Jasinska is the co-creator of Allo Alphabet, a mobile phone ed-tech program that delivers reading lessons to children in rural Cote d'Ivoire.