ATHENA VOULOUMANOS is an associate professor of psychology at New York University where she directs the NYU Infant Cognition and Communication Lab. She received a BSc in Biology from McGill University and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of British Columbia.
Vouloumanos’s research addresses fundamental questions on speech perception, language acquisition, and the development of communication. With funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture, and the National Institutes of Health, Vouloumanos has been exploring the linguistic and cognitive abilities of adults and young infants, including newborns and infants at high risk for autism spectrum disorder. Her findings have been published in Science, Cognition, Cognitive Science, Child Development, Developmental Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.