Meet our Team!
principal investigator
Dr. Monika Molnar
Dr. Monika Molnar is an Assistant Professor and the director of the BAM! Development Laboratory at the University of Toronto. She earned her PhD from McGill University and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, before joining the Department of Speech-Language Pathology. Dr. Molnar’s research focuses on the speech processing and cognitive development of bilingual and multilingual populations across the life span, including infants, children & adults.
research students
Insiya Bhalloo
A graduate from UTSC’s Psycholinguistics Specialist program (Honours, B.A in Psycholinguistics, Specialist and Minor in Psychology, 2018), Insiya is especially interested in facilitating the development of culturally-effective speech-language and literacy assessment and therapy tools. Conversant in multiple languages (including Urdu, Swahili, Gujrati and Farsi), Insiya is passionate about contributing to the research field of multi-literacy and language-specific research – one of the many reasons why she enjoys her work as an MSc student at the Multilingual Development Lab. Her MSc project focuses on the Predictors of Reading Development and Difficulty in Bilingual Urdu-English Canadian Children. Favourite volunteer opportunity? – Helping to set-up a speech clinic in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania for Swahili-English bilingual children! Insiya hopes to pursue further doctoral studies in SLP, while continuing to explore her passion for speech-language research (and further travelling!). Favourite hobby? Drinking tea and skiing (but not at the same time!).
Kai Ian Leung
Kai Ian Leung is a second-year Masters of Science student in the Speech-Language Pathology stream at the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, University of Toronto. She graduated from U of T (St. George Campus) in 2019 with an undergraduate in Linguistics and Psychology and a minor in Asian Cultures and Literatures. She was the Work-Study Research Assistant for the Voices Project at the BAM Development Lab, and a volunteer for the Tweety Project. After graduation, she hopes to pursue further graduate studies in Speech-Language Pathology. Her current project is a collaboration with the Hospital for Sick Children on the topic of pediatric stroke and the effect of language exposure affecting recovery of language and cognition. Her research interests lie in multilingualism and child language research. Fun fact - Kai has been speaking and learning 5 languages from elementary school, including Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Spanish and most recently Japanese.
research assistants
Lindsay Williams
Lindsay completed her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Linguistics at McGill University, and recently returned from San Sebastian, Spain, where she completed her Master’s degree at the Basque Centre on Cognition, Brain, and Language. Her Master’s research focused on the factors influencing interlingual competition and interference in bilinguals, and she continues to be interested in this topic, in addition to an interest in cognitive differences between bilinguals and monolinguals. In her free time, Lindsay loves hiking, pursuing various creative hobbies, and finding time to practice her own L2s, Spanish and German.
Siobhan Galeazzi
Siobhan is in the fourth year of her undergraduate degree with a double major in Psychology and Cognitive Science (Language and Cognition) at the University of Toronto. Growing up in Quebec sparked her interest in multilingualism and its effect on attention and learning. After obtaining her undergraduate degree, she hopes to pursue graduate studies in Speech-Language Pathology.
Nicole Boles
Nicole holds a B.A honours degree from UofC’s psychology program and is an incoming clinical masters student in the Speech-Language pathology program at UofT. Growing up in a multilingual family, Nicole is particularly interested in the effects of multilingualism on cognitive development and emergent literacy skills. Nicole’s undergraduate honours thesis investigated the relationship between children’s home literacy environments (HLE) and their future performance on language and literacy assessments. Outside of the lab, Nicole enjoys running and spending time with her family and friends.
Isabella Speranza
Isabella is a first year MHSc student in Speech-Language Pathology. She completed her undergraduate degree at Carleton University where she studied Linguistics with a concentration in Psycholinguistics and Communication Disorders. In terms of research, Isabella completed her honours thesis where she looked at the effects of linguistic background on audio-visual language processing, and currently she is working on a project looking at the efficacy of parent-report data on bilingual child language abilities. After she completes her MHSc, she hopes to be both a practicing Speech-Language Pathologist as well as continue to be involved in research. Outside of school, Isabella enjoys exercising, cooking and spending time with her dogs!
volunteers
Christine Muscat
Christine completed her Honours BSc. at the University of Toronto with a Specialist in Psychology and a Major in Neuroscience. Her honours thesis investigated the longitudinal cognitive, behavioural and academic outcomes in children born very preterm. Christine is currently a year 1 graduate student completing a MHSc. in Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Toronto. Her current research interests include atypical development, including the atypical cognitive and language development of children with developmental disorders and acquired brain injuries.
Jodee Santos
Maya Aharon
Maya is currently in her first year of the Speech-Language Pathology MHSc. program at the University of Toronto. She completed her Bachelors of Arts at McGill University in Honours Psychology with a minor in Linguistics. Her thesis focused on whether an abstract pattern (i.e., ABA, ABB) is more easily learned in the auditory or visual modality, and whether bilingualism plays a role in our ability to learn such abstract patterns. Currently, she is interested in how bilingualism may impact the presentation of communication disorders, such as fluency and developmental disorders, and how we can improve our current practices for culturally and linguistically diverse individuals. Outside of school, Maya enjoys taking her dog on long walks, cooking new foods and doing virtual game nights.
past team members
Brianna Guild
After a long career of thumb sucking, Brianna decided to pursue her interest in science. She graduated from the University of Guelph in 2017, with a B.Sc. Biochemistry (Co-op) degree and a minor in Psychology: Brain & Cognition. She worked in the Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology at the University of Guelph as a Research Assistant and has several publications. Brianna discovered her interest in Speech-Language Pathology by volunteering with multiple group programs for preschool children with language and communication disorders. Brianna is now in her first year of the MHSc Speech-Language Pathology program at the University of Toronto, and aspires to continue working with children as a Speech-Language Pathologist.
Jayme Porter
Jayme graduated from the University of Western Ontario in 2017, with a Bachelor of Arts Honors degree, double major in Psychology and Linguistics and a certificate in Practical Spanish. Jayme has always had a strong interest in language. This started with a desire to learn a second language and continued on into the field of Speech-Language Pathology after volunteering with a local Speech Pathologist prior to starting her undergraduate degree. She spent her years at Western studying Spanish, taking advantage of various study abroad opportunities, and continuing to nurture her love of Speech-Language Pathology. Jayme is now in her first year of the MHSc Speech-Language Pathology program at the University of Toronto, and hopes to expand her knowledge in the field of multilingual language development.
Claire Liu
Claire is a first year Speech-Language Pathology student at the University of Toronto. She completed her Master’s level research training in Communication Sciences and Disorders at McGill University. Claire aspires to become a clinician-researcher working with the neonatal/paediatric population. Shaped by her experiences growing up trilingual in Montreal and working in infant language research, her interests currently reside in early multilingual speech development and perception.
Kristen Thompson
Shanan Floto
Hayley Ostrega
Hayley is a clinical master’s student in the Speech-Language Pathology program at U of T. She is a recent graduate from McGill University in Linguistics and Psychology. Living in the bilingual city of Montreal is where her curiosity and excitement for multilingualism flourished. Her research interests include understanding how the characterization of communication disorders and other pathologies differ in monolingual and bilinguals and how this can affect clinical intervention. Hayley's undergraduate honours thesis investigated the morphosyntax of bilingual and monolingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD), to assess whether crosslinguistic influence could benefit a child with DLD.
Wenfu Bao
Wenfu Bao is a Ph.D. student in Speech-Language Pathology and Neuroscience at the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute, University of Toronto. He completed his M.Sc. in Linguistics at the University of Alberta. Wenfu is interested in the cognitive and neural development in bilinguals across the lifespan. His research project focuses on examining the neural and physiological correlates of attention development in monolinguals and bilinguals, through techniques such as EEG, eye-tracking and heart rate.
Alisha Suri
Alisha is in the third year of her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto with a specialist in Health and Disease, a major in Cell and Molecular Biology and a minor in Music History and Culture. She has always had a passion for neuroscience, with a specific interest in early childhood cognitive and neurological development. In terms of research, Alisha has worked as part of investigative teams to help understand behavioural, cognitive and neural phenotypes of a number of neurodevelopmental disorders. Creative outlets such as language and music have been long-standing hobbies of hers, sparking her interest in characterizing the intersection of such outlets and brain development. After completing her undergraduate degree, Alisha looks forward to pursuing a medical career in paediatric neurology and to continuing her engagement in language and music learning. When she’s not studying or in the lab, you can usually find her doing Pilates, signing, cooking or baking!
Emily completed her undergraduate degree at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Languages. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish and speaks conversational German. Emily then attended the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at McGill University, where she earned her clinical Masters Degree in Speech-Language Pathology. She now works as a Speech-Language Pathologist at the Durham District School Board. Emily has a keen interest in literacy, specifically early literacy development in bilingual and multilingual children. She volunteers at the BAM lab in the Online Literacy Study, and acts as a clinical educator to SLP graduate students from the University of Toronto completing placements at the lab. Emily holds adjunct lecture status at Rehabilitation Sciences Institute and plans to pursue research in the future.