KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Bencie Woll
(University College London)
Webpage: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/dcal/team/accordion/directorsresearch/benciewoll

 "Why sign language is good for your brain"

Bencie Woll began her career in Sign Language and Deaf Studies research at the University of Bristol in 1978, where she was a co-founder of the Centre for Deaf Studies. She moved to London in 1995 to take up a Chair in Sign Language and Deaf Studies, the first in this field in the UK, and then to University College London in 2005 where she is Professor and Director of the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, the largest research group in this field in Europe, with around 30 research students, research fellows and associated researchers, about 1/3 of whom are Deaf. Her research and teaching interests embrace a wide range of topics, including the linguistics of British Sign Language (BSL), the history and sociolinguistics of BSL and the Deaf community, language development in deaf children, neuroscience of signed and spoken language, and developmental and acquired sign language impairments. In 2012 she became a Fellow of the British Academy.

Rachel I. Mayberry
(The University of California San Diego)
Webpage: http://grammar.ucsd.edu/mayberrylab/RachelMayberry.html

"How infant language prepares the child's brain to read"

Rachel I. Mayberry is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and serves as Director of the Laboratory for Multimodal Language Development, UCSD. Her research investigates how language develops across the many forms that language can take: sign language, spoken language, and written language. The past few years, her research focused on the following key questions: 1) the nature of the critical period for language, including language development and brain imaging studies; 2) whether and how proficiency in a sign language relates to reading proficiency, including meta-analyses and eye-tracking studies; and 3) the degree to which general cognitive principles are factors in the emergence of linguistic structure in sign languages, including studies of gesture and handedness in sign languages. Her research is currently funded by grants from the Kavli Foundation and the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. She has been awarded a number of honors and awards and her work can be frequently seen in various international edited volumes, books and journals, such as Cognition, Brain and Language and Applied Psycholinguistics. 

Anne E. Baker
(The University of Amsterdam)
Website:
http://www.uva.nl/over-de-uva/organisatie/medewerkers/content/b/a/a.e.baker/a.e.baker.html

"Assessing language abilities in deaf children"

Anne E. Baker is an emeritus professor at the University of Amsterdam. She completed her Ph.D. at York University in the field of Linguistics in 1975 and then in 1985 her Habilitation at Tübingen University (Germany) where she was lecturing. She then worked in York (UK) as a senior lecturer from 1986 to 1988 when she was appointed chair of Psycholinguistics, Language Pathology and Sign Linguistics in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. She served on the Faculty Board as vice-dean (1994-1997) and was director of the research institute Amsterdam Centre for Language and Communication (2002-2009). She was also a member of the Flemish Scientific Council from 2003 to 2009. She is president of the Sign Language Linguistics Society and is currently on the board of the Cognitive Science Center Amsterdam. Her research is in the field of psycholinguistics, specifically language acquisition of spoken and signed languages and developmental language pathologies. Her particular interest is in cross-linguistic investigation of acquisition and the relationship between language and cognition. She has been awarded several national and international grants and was a NIAS Fellow in 1990-1991 and 2005-2006, and her work has been published in many different international edited volumes and journals including Sign Language and Linguistics and Journal of Child Language. 

Shirin D. Antia
(The University of Arizona)
Webpage: https://www.coe.arizona.edu/faculty_profile/186

"Making inclusion happen: Factors leading to success"

Shirin D. Antia, Meyerson Distinguished Professor of Disability and Rehabilitation, Department of Disability and Psychoeducational Studies (DPS), College of Education has directed the program in education of Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) since 1980. She teaches masters- and doctoral-level courses in the areas of language development of exceptional students, inclusion, and research. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, the primary research journal in education of DHH individuals. She has been a board member of the Council on Education of the Deaf (CED), served as the president of the Association of College Educators-Deaf/Hard of Hearing (ACE-DHH) and is actively involved in professional preparation activities. She is the author of numerous articles and chapters on social interaction, social integration, and inclusion of DHH students. She is currently a co-principal investigator of the Center for Literacy and Deafness, a research center funded by the Institute of Educational Sciences. She has been honored as a UA CoE Erasmus Scholar, and received the Sister Mary Delaney award from ACE-DHH for her professional contribution to the field.

Carl J. Kirchner
(National University - San Diego)

"Educational Success = Environmental Change"

 Carl J. Kirchner is a son of Deaf parents (CODA) in his fifty-fourth year of professional education services serving deaf and hard of hearing students and adults. He established the D/HH teacher preparation program at California State University- Northridge serving as an Assistant and Associate Professor.  He co-founded the private Los Angeles K-12 D/HH School - TRIPOD where he served as administrator and educational director.  He has worked in residential, special day class and mainstreaming programs and was an educational consultant for the California State Department of Education.  He has been in leadership positions serving as President of the Southern California Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (SCRID), the National Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (RID) and the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf (CAID).  Currently, he is an Adjunct Faculty member at National University, LaJolla, California and is particularly honored to be an overseas consultant to the “Jockey Club Sign Bilingualism and Co-enrollment in Deaf Education” research program for which he provided support to the program staff.