Office: SLHS C354
Dr. Brennan is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist and speech-language pathologist interested in investigating the brain systems supporting language development and speech processing. Her work bridges communication sciences and disorders, cognitive science, and educational neuroscience with applications to basic and applied research in the fields of speech-language pathology and education. Dr. Brennan is the director of the ANCAR Lab (Applied Neuroscience for Communication and Reading) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Recent work conducted by Dr. Brennan in the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Northwestern University focused on how the auditory cortex encodes phonemes, how it synthesizes phonemes into words, and how these processes are affected by experience. Dr. Brennan’s current research aims to improve our understanding of how the organization of the auditory cortex for phonological information may differ in children with and without language-based learning disabilities in which phonological skill is implicated, including dyslexia. Her research projects utilize standardized behavioral measures, experimental tasks, and functional neuroimaging (fMRI). She is a member of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, as well as a member of the Intermountain Neuroimaging Consortium (INC). Professor Brennan currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in speech and hearing sciences. She earned her PhD and MA from Northwestern University.