Background

Michelle is a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology working with Susan Goldin-Meadow. She graduated with a B.S. in Psychology, an additional major in Global Studies, and a minor in Arabic Studies from Carnegie Mellon University in 2020. During her time at Carnegie Mellon, Michelle conducted research focused on language education and on the role of second-order correlation learning in infant language development. In 2021, Michelle graduated with an Ed.M. in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While at Harvard, Michelle worked as a graduate research assistant for Project Zero’s Global Children Project, where she investigated how young children’s conceptions of geographical space contribute to their development of global competence.

Research

Michelle is interested in identifying through interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research the verbal and nonverbal characteristics of human language that can be considered universal. She hopes that this research can be applied to enhancing the communicative relationships between educators and learners across communities and cultures.