Emma James

My primary research interests are in language learning and literacy development. I am currently a postdoctoral researcher working with Professor Kate Nation, examining the precursors and consequences of comprehension difficulties using the ALSPAC cohort. 

I completed my undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford (2010-2013), and subsequently spent a year as a Research Associate at Lancaster University. I moved to the University of York in 2014, where I completed a Masters, PhD and Postdoctoral Fellowship as part of the Sleep, Language and Memory Lab. 

My previous research was on individual differences in language learning: how is it that some children come to acquire new vocabulary more easily than others, and how might the learning mechanisms change as we grow older? My PhD studies addressed these questions by examining the influence of prior knowledge on learning new words. In ongoing research, I hope to bridge gaps between small-scale experiments and learning in practice by using naturally occurring datasets.