Previously Worked with Us

Former Research Assistants

WAI, Justine Wing June

Justine Wai was a full-time research assistant in the SLR Lab. In 2021, she graduated with first-class honours in BSc Psychology and Criminology from Loughborough University in the UK, where she also received the Dean’s Prize for Academic Excellence after obtaining the top score in the programme. During her University studies, she worked part-time at a nursery and coordinated teaching activities for school-aged children. Prior to working full-time, she was a summer research intern at the SLR Lab in 2019 and 2020. These experiences inspired her interest in a future research career, focusing on children’s learning and communication, and how external influences, such as parents, play a role in early childhood development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAW, Nicole

Nicole Law is the lab manager at the SLR Lab. She received her Master of Science in Developmental Linguistics from The University of Edinburgh in 2019. She also completed her BA in English Studies at City University of Hong Kong with first class honors in 2018. She endeavors to further her research and work in bilingualism as well as atypical language development.

In the lab, Nicole mainly focuses on the 3-year longitudinal study on ASD children’s cognitive skills and reading comprehension development. She is also responsible for any research-related matters of the SLR Lab.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FUNG, Cecilia 

​Cecilia Fung is a research assistant at the Speech, Language and Reading Lab since 2017. Majoring in Linguistics and Geography, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Hong Kong in 2017. Cecilia endeavors to further her studies and work in fields related to cognitive processing in young children and psycholinguistics. To date, she has studied neurolinguistics at the University of Amsterdam and has worked in a playgroup center for infants and toddlers.

In the lab, Cecilia works on two projects. One is an international collaboration on infants’ perception and the other is a 3-year longitudinal study on ASD children’s reading comprehension development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAW, Katherine

Katherine Law was a research assistant at the Speech, Language and Reading Lab. She received her BA in Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Upon graduation, she worked as a Behavior Specialist at the Center for Social Dynamics, an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) service provider with centers located across the San Francisco Bay Area. She provided 1-on-1 ABA services to children diagnosed on the autism spectrum at home- and community-settings.

In the lab, Katherine worked on two large-scale projects. One was a 3-year longitudinal study on bilingual children’s reading comprehension development. The other was a 2-year study of statistical learning of orthographic regularities in children with developmental dyslexia.

 

 

 

 

 

CHOW, Cynthia

Cynthia Chow was a research assistant at the Speech, Language and Reading Lab from Feb – Aug 2017. In 2015, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of British Columbia with a major in Psychology and a minor in Asian Area Studies. She has been working as a Behaviour Interventionist in Metro Vancouver for the last three years, providing services to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental disorders in home, school, and community based settings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Former Student Research Assistants

LAM, Yi Tung Michelle

Michelle Lam was an undergraduate research assistant at the Speech, Language and Reading Lab from Oct 2016-Jan 2017. She graduated from The University of Hong Kong with a Bachelor degree majoring in English studies with a minor in Education. She is interested in early childhood special education, and has studied in  an early childhood education and development program at the University of British Columbia. She was also a class support volunteer at Watchdog Early Education Centre. She assisted on statistical learning project. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Former Postdoctoral Fellows

ZHANG, Manli

Manli Zhang was a postdoctoral fellow in Educational Neuroscience at the Speech, Language and Reading Lab. She graduated from Peking University with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Developmental and Educational Psychology. She received her PhD degree in Cognitive Neuroscience from Maastricht University. She is interested in language learning and comprehension (both spoken and written), and the “black box” in the brain that governs such development. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LI, Ran

Ran Li was a postdoctoral fellow in the Speech, Language and Reading Lab. She received a bachelor’s degree in linguistics and a master’s degree in speech-language pathology from the University of Maryland. Ran completed her PhD training in the Aphasia Research Laboratory at Boston University. Her previous research has focused on behavioral and neural changes following language treatment in both monolinguals and bilinguals with post-stroke aphasia. She is also interested in neural mechanisms associated with reading intervention in individuals with developmental or acquired reading difficulty.