Our Research Team

Dr. Pui Fong Kan is an associate professor in the Department of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is also a clinically certified speech-language pathologist. She completed both her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology and her Ph.D. in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Her research examines language learning in typically-developing bilingual children and bilingual children with language impairments. ORCID 0000-0001-8671-7755

Jamal A. Khlifat is a doctoral student researcher in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. He is also a graduate-student instructor (GPTI) at the Program for Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research interests include bilingualism and its impact on semantics and phonological awareness, lexical semantics, forensic linguistics, phonetics, phonology (pharyngealization and pharyngeal harmony in Levantine Arabic, gemination in Levantine Arabic, nasalization and...

Caitlin is a current undergraduate student majoring in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Her primary area of interest lies in the study of bilingualism and providing clinical services to bilingual populations. She is passionate about understanding the unique challenges and opportunities that bilingual individuals face in their communication. Her current project explores using social media to reach parents raising bilingual children.

Anna is an undergraduate student majoring in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and minoring in Spanish and Education. Her current research is interested in exploring the phonological development of Cantonese-English bilingual preschool students. She is passionate about understanding the unique language profiles of linguistically diverse populations and hopes to work as a bilingual SLP in the future.

Richy is a Speech-Language Pathology graduate clinician. His research interests include bilingualism and it impacts on syntax, semantics, phonology, cognition, and child language acquisition. He primarily conducts research in English and Japanese. His current project examines semantic development in Japanese-English bilingual children in both Japanese and English.

Morgan Jones joined the lab in the spring of 2021 as a research assistant. She is currently working towards a Bachelor's degree with a double major in Linguistics and Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Her current project examines bilingual children's semantic development. In her free time, she enjoys reading and studying languages.

Karina Navarro is a currency MA-SLP student at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is a Spanish-English bilingual. She joined the Child Language Learning Lab in 2022. Her research interest is in language assessments for students from diverse language backgrounds. Currently, she is investigating the use of nonword repetition tasks as an alternative assessment tool for bilingual children. After graduation, Karina aspires to further pursue her research and contribute to...

Madeline is pursuing dual Bachelor’s degrees in speech, language, and hearing sciences, and linguistics. Her academic journey has led to a passion for studying bilingual children's language development. Joining the Child Language Learning lab in 2023 as a research assistant, she aims to merge personal experiences with lab findings and apply them to her future career as a Speech-language pathologist. Her current research project examines the response speed of bilingual...

Katrina Smoot is an undergraduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder majoring in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and double minoring in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages and Sociology. Katrina joined the Child Language Learning Lab in the spring of 2024 and is excited to continue researching her passions in bilingualism and the influence of speech-language pathology in bilingual education. Her current project explores bilingual language acquisition...

Lorena joined the lab in Spring of 2022 to help with a multisite project looking at response speed times in bilingual children. She is a graduate student in the Speech Language Pathology Master’s program. She has an MA in medical anthropology and a graduate certificate in GIS from CU Denver. She looks forward to practicing as an SLP and working with children. When not studying she enjoys reading, hiking, and...

Ella is an undergraduate student majoring in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and minoring in Education. She became a research assistant in the Child Language Learning lab in the fall of 2023 and also has extensive experience in early intervention working with preschool-age bilingual children. Ella is passionate about deepening her understanding of linguistically diverse children to enrich her future career as an SLP. Beyond academic pursuits, she enjoys being...

Natalie Sesselmann joined the lab in Spring of 2024 as a research assistant. She is currently a junior working towards a bachelors degree in Psychology and Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. She is fluent in Japanese and German, so her primary area of interest lies in the study of those bilingual populations. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and swimming.

Mei White will be a graduate student in the MA-SLP program here at CU. She joined the CLLL in Spring 2022 as an undergrad. She is currently certified as an SLPA and is working in a K-5 school with a dual-language program. Her primary focus in this field relates to the study of bilingualism and providing appropriate services to culturally- and linguistically-diverse populations.

Dr. Shirley Huang (she/her) is a SRCD Federal Executive Branch Fellow in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).