Research areas
I study communication and how human capacity for language emerged.
My work takes a biocultural approach, examining communication across three timescales: how it develops in childhood, how it evolved in our species, and how it changes as it is used and passed between people.
To do this, I work with a wide range of communication systems, including homesign, primate gesture, and spoken and signed languages. My research is deeply interdisciplinary, drawing on developmental psychology, linguistics, primatology and evolutionary cognition.