Scientists and staff at Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute (MRRI) are pleased to welcome Anna Krason, MSc, to the Institute this month. Ms. Krason is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Experimental Psychology at University College London (UCL). Her dissertation supervisors are MRRI Scientist in Residence and UCL Professor Gabriella Vigliocco, PhD, MRRI Associate Director Laurel Buxbaum, PsyD, and UCL Professor Rosemary Varley, PhD. The focus of her dissertation research has been on multimodal communication and the impact of visual cues on speech comprehension in neurotypical individuals and people with chronic aphasia. These visual cues include the gestures and mouth movements that are integral to face-to-face communication. During her PhD, Ms. Krason was awarded UCL Bogue Fellowship and MRRI Peer Review Committee grant to visit MRRI and investigate the benefit of visual speech information to aphasic comprehension

Ms. Krason received her undergraduate and postgraduate training in French Philology focusing on Linguistics and Translation from the University of Wroclaw in Poland. Afterwards, she continued her studies there, obtaining Speech and Language Therapy qualifications. Next, Ms. Krason earned her MSc degree in Psychology and Language Science from UCL, specializing in Neuroscience and Communication. Drs. Vigliocco and Buxbaum served as her MSc supervisors on a project examining the integration of co-speech gestures in people with aphasia and limb apraxia. Prior to enrolling in her PhD program at UCL, Anna worked as a research assistant on a project investigating a computer-based speech comprehension therapy for individuals with aphasia. This therapy incorporated elements of gamification to increase user engagement.

At MRRI, Ms. Krason will be working on a joint NIH project led by Institute Scientist and Director of the Language and Learning Laboratory, Erica Middleton, PhD, and the Director of Neuroscience of Language Lab at George Washington University, Malathi Thothathiri, PhD. In this project, Ms. Krason will use EEG and eye-tracking methods to investigate the impact of cognitive control deficits on sentence comprehension in individuals with aphasia.

Ms. Krason will also continue her collaboration with the Language and Cognition lab at UCL, as well as with Drs. Buxbaum and Vigliocco on their project examining multimodal communication in aphasia.

With a background in speech and language therapy, Ms. Krason is particularly interested in the interplay between the brain and language. Her long-term research goal is to advance our understanding of cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language and its impairments.