This post is also available in Dutch.
Elena is a PhD student in the Neurocognition of Bilingualism lab, under the supervision of Kristin Lemhöfer, at the Donders Center for Cognition. Her research topic revolves around how different factors, such as prior knowledge or learning situations, influence vocabulary acquisition in a second language, a topic at the intersection of memory and psycholinguistic research. More specifically, this project investigates the episodic vs semantic memory involvement in learning words in a foreign language under different circumstances.
Wanting to share her fascination for cognitive research with her friends and family outside the field in an accessible manner, she joined the Donders Wonders blogging team hoping to strengthen her science communication skills.
In her free time, Elena likes to play music or draw, travel to new places, or simply read or watch a movie with her cat on her lap.