People
What We Do
Much of our work uses MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), which is a safe and widely used tool to examine brain structure and function. To learn how to participate, click here!
Social Media
Current Lab Members
Director
James Booth
James R. Booth is the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor in the Department of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. The overall goals of his research are to understand the brain mechanisms of the development of reading, math and scientific reasoning in typical and atypical populations. Prof. Booth has been continuously funded for close to two decades and has published extensively in diverse journals. He has served in various roles both within and outside of the university, such as departmental chairperson, review panel member and associate editor. Prof Booth aims to facilitate the interaction between the fields of cognition, neuroscience and education.
Post-doctoral Research Associates
Avantika Mathur
Avantika Mathur, PhD, is a Senior Research Analyst at the Brain Development Lab. Her research integrates multimodal neuroimaging and advanced computational pipelines to map childhood language maturation and reading pathways. Her recent work demonstrates how early brain network connectivity and structural white matter shifts predict longitudinal language specialization in young children. Currently, she is spearheading investigations within the Late Talker Project, utilizing neuroimaging workflows to isolate early biomarkers that distinguish transient preschool language delays. Previously, she earned her PhD at the National Brain Research Centre, India and completed post-doctoral research fellowships, at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and Boys Town National Research Hospital.
Doctoral Students
Alisha Compton
Alisha Compton is a doctoral candidate in the Brain Development Lab studying educational neuroscience. Her research focuses on how the home literacy environment relates to brain structure and function relevant to language processing across development. Alisha also investigates how anxiety symptoms relate to language and reading skills. She was previously a teacher and earned her MS in Education from Johns Hopkins University.
Avery Vess
Avery Vess is a Ph.D. student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program. She received her undergraduate degree in Hearing and Speech Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park. Avery is broadly interested in investigating how the neurocognitive mechanisms that support language processing relate to individual behavioral differences in language comprehension and use. Her research will aim to address fundamental questions about whether children’s knowledge of the structural properties of words and sentences is associated with the organization and function of their language networks. She is also interested in how these relations may differ in children with communication disorders and children who are hard-of-hearing.
Jiuru Wang
Jiuru Wang is a PhD student in Psychological Science. He pursued his Masters degree in Statistics at Columbia University, and then worked as a research assistant in the Math Brain Lab at Georgetown University. His research interests include understanding the neural basis and cognitive processes involved in typical and atypical language development, reasoning and decision making. Additionally, Jiuru is interested in exploring computational techniques and quantitative methods in psychological and cognitive science research.
Master Students
Kiwin Wu
Kiwin Wu is a master's student in the Cognitive Psychology in Context program. She earned her bachelor's degrees in Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience) and Linguistics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. During her undergraduate studies, she worked as a research assistant in the Language Acquisition Lab and contributed to a research project at National Taiwan University examining the neural mechanisms of spatial learning using fMRI. She is interested in understanding the neural mechanisms underlying language development and learning across different populations.
Tianyi Zhu
Tianyi Zhu is a master’s student in the Cognitive Psychology in Context program. She earned her BA in Social Sciences (Psychology track) from New York University Shanghai. Her previous work examined how linguistic context and emotional content influence brain activity and dishonest behavior, and she now aims to further explore the interplay between language and anxiety.
Staff
Andromeda Henderson
Andromeda Henderson received her undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware in Psychology. There, she worked as a research assistant in two labs on campus studying literacy and language development as well as motivation and attentional scope. Through support from both labs, she completed a senior thesis studying emotional regulation in individuals with developmental dyslexia. She plans to use the skills she learns from the Brain Development Lab to pursue a Ph.D. in developmental psychology.
Honors Thesis Students
Melany Morgan
Melany Morgan is an honors student in the Brain Development Lab. She is majoring in Elementary Education and Language Sciences with a minor Special Education. Her honors project is on the language networks children use for morphological processing during reading and how this correlates with age and skill. This project will extend to children who have experienced hearing loss. Melany wants to learn more about the science of reading and language development while completing her honors project to support her interests in the field of early childhood education.
Dara Soucheng Lorn
Soucheng Lorn is an international student from Cambodia pursuing a double major in cognitive studies and psychology at Vanderbilt University. She is an honors student in the Brain Development Lab, where her research investigates how individual differences in reading skills are associated with neural activation in key left-hemisphere language regions involved in semantic and phonological processing. With the knowledge, experiences, and skills she will gain through her honors project and work as a research assistant in the lab, Soucheng hopes to pursue a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. Ultimately, she aspires to return to Cambodia as a resource to increase access to mental health services and provide research-based psychological care in her home country.