Biography
I read English and German Philology at the University of Göttingen in Germany, completing my studies with a PhD in generative syntax. My current research focuses on grammatical processing in mono- and multilingual adults, and on experimental syntax (see my publications and research statement).
Current externally funded research projects:
- Grammatical processing and syntactic change (DFG, with U. Demske)
- Bilingual processing ability as a predictor for language learning (DFG, with H. Clahsen)
I am an editorial board member of Language Acquisition, Second Language Research, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Languages, and the Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics. I have taught courses mainly in the areas of theoretical syntax, the syntax/semantics interface, sentence processing, and second language acquisition. Information about my past and current doctoral students can be found here.
| since 2011 | Senior Researcher & Co-Director, Potsdam Research Institute for Multilingualism |
| 2011 | Habilitation, University of Potsdam |
| 2005 - 2011 | Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), University of Essex, UK |
| 1997 - 2005 | Lecturer (Assistant Professor, tenured), University of Essex, UK |
| 1994 - 1997 | Teaching Fellow, University of Essex, UK |
| 1995 | PhD, University of Göttingen, Germany |
| 1992 | MA, University of Göttingen, Germany |