Mandy J Maguire, Ph.D.

Dr. Mandy Maguire has a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Temple University and B.A. in Psychology from Penn State. Additionally, she conducted research at Carnegie Mellon and did postdoctoral work at the University of Lousiville. She is an expert in cognitive development, focusing on language acquisition in a variety of children including special needs populations. She has investigated language delays in various ability levels and needs including children with autism spectrum disorders, specific language impairments, hearing impairments with cochlear implants. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas.

 

Diane Ogiela, Ph.D.

Dr. Diane Ogiela is a postdoctoral research fellow at the UTD Callier Center for Communication Disorders. She is also a certified speech-language pathologist who has worked clinically in a variety of settings. She earned a PhD in Speech Language Pathology from Michigan State University, an MS in Speech-Language Pathology from Purdue University, an MA in Linguistics from Syracuse University and a BA in Psychology from Benedictine University. Her primary areas of interest are language development in children with language impairments as well as those with typical language. Dr. Ogiela’s research focuses on grammatical development, the development of verb aspect and the relationship between syntax and semantics. She is currently examining syntactic processing in children with language impairments and typical language using electrophysiological measures.

 

Joshua White, Lab Coordinator

Joshua started his undergraduate studies at Austin College with a focus on Psychology. He is now an Undergraduate student at UTD majoring in Neuroscience. He plans to attend a graduate program with a focus on neuronal communication and its affect on abnormal behavior.

 

Rebecca Egbert

Rebecca Egbert is a master’s student in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience at University of Texas at Dallas. After graduation, she plans on entering a doctoral program in Cognitive Neuroscience. Her research interests include language acquisition and decision-making.

 

Lacrisha Lewis

Lacrisha Lewis received a BA in Psychology and BS in Child Learning and Develoment from UTD. She is in the Applied Cognition and Neuroscience Masters program with cognition and neuroscience as her area of specialization. She currently works as an Elementary school special education teacher in Frisco. She plans to continue my work in the special services area within the public school system and obtain a doctorate in school psychology.

 

Esther Escobedo

Esther Escobedo is an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Dallas. She hopes to be graduating fall of 2009 with a degree in psychology. Afterwards, she plans on applying for graduate school to explore different fields of research in psychology and neuroscience.

 

Emily Vutam

Emily Vutam is an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Dallas majoring in neuroscience. After graduation, she plans to go to medical school.

 

Michelle Cho

Michelle Cho is a post-baccalaureate majoring in Psychology at the University of Texas at Dallas. She decided to work in Dr. Maguire's lab because she is interested in learning about the neurological processes of a child's brain while listening to incorrect language. She has a keen interest in social psychology and wishes to pursue graduate studies in this field.

 

Arianne Cunanan

Arianne Cunanan is graduating in 2009 with a bachelor's in Neuroscience. She plans to pursue graduate studies in the fields of psychology and neurology. She joined Dr. Maguire's lab in the summer of 2009 to learn first-hand about Dr. Maguire's interesting research in language development.

 

Dustin Larson

Dustin Larson is a psychology/child learning development major. He played for the UTD soccer team for 2 years. His interests following his time at UTD will either be the peace corp. or grad school. If he goes to grad school, then he will be looking for a degree in either counseling or I/O psychology.

 

Lida Vatanpour

Lida Vatanpour started studying neuroscience when she moved to U.S. She is planning to get her bachelor this coming fall and going to graduate school doing research. She had a scholarship from Texas A & M-Commerce to work as a Research Assistant on the Proteomic research they were doing there, last summer. She was able to present data at the 64th Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Little Rock, Arkansas last year, which gave her a great opportunity to discover her interest in doing research.