Colleen Ward presents research on aphasia self-disclosure at the 2021 ASHA Convention’s virtual library

On November 18, 2021, Colleen Ward, a NOLA graduate research assistant and second-year master’s student in the SLP program, is presenting her undergraduate honors thesis through a virtual technical research session at the hybrid 2021 ASHA Convention. The ASHA Convention is “the premier annual professional development and networking event for speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and speech, language, and hearing scientists” (About the ASHA Convention). Colleen’s 30-minute presentation, titled “The Effect of Aphasia ID Cards on Neurotypical Comprehension of Aphasic Language,” will be available for viewing in the ASHA Convention Virtual Library for the duration of the conference.

Welcome New Lab Members!

September 1, 2021

Welcome to Amrita Adak, Megan Bondar, Margaret Grossman, Abi Knopp, Paige Muir, and Julia Toto who joined our lab in Fall 2021! We are so excited to work with you!

Congratulations Graduates!

On May 14, 2021 Lindsay Hohenberg, Sarah Martins, Christine Reggio, and Joan Laramee graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Congratulations to NOLA Lab members Class of 2021, we wish you the best!

NOLA Lab presents at the 2021 Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference and School of Public Health and Health Sciences Research Day

On April 23, 2021 Christine Reggio, Grace Haskell, and Joan Laramee presented their research at the 2021 Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference. Colleen Ward, Lindsay Hohenberg, Christina Clark, and Sarah Martins presented their research at the SPHHS Research Day. Congratulations to all of the lab members who presented their research! You cn find links to our presentations below!

Grace Haskell and Joan Laramee, URC:

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/nola-lab_umass_edu/EcENcfq0NcpBmV2-KjfMtpABAuoxm4ALIdSbJev6TlACmg?e=2ZA1cn

Christine Reggio, MRI at URC:

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/nola-lab_umass_edu/EcvQVABVemtGtM5395hOo_YBp9IzAruBqaCce_Xico1dBg?e=wF7t9y

Colleen Ward, SPHHS:

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/nola-lab_umass_edu/ETSq4AhcFRlEt0iU150tYZYBHuFxYXU0XfOfWiXyPo-gZQ?e=0b0oeF

Published!

On January 22, 2021, we were published online in the Language, Cognition, and Neuroscience (LCN) journal! Co-authored by NOLA Lab PI Dr. Jennifer Mack, NOLA Lab graduate research assistant Colleen Ward, and NOLA Lab alum Sofia Stratford, Impact of the fMRI environment on eye-tracking measures in a linguistic prediction task is the first published work from NOLA Lab at UMass Amherst. We are so excited!

Links can be found below to the publication by LCN and the author manuscript, as well as the full APA citation.

Author manuscript link | Article link

Full APA citation: Mack, J. E., Ward, C., & Stratford, S. (2021). Impact of the fMRI environment on eye-tracking measures in a linguistic prediction task. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 1-19.

Fall 2020 in the NOLA Lab

The Neuroscience of Language and Aphasia lab at UMass had a productive fall semester despite the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic. Undergraduate and graduate lab members presented at two conferences, participated in ASHA programming, and continued to learn about and design experiments relating to our refined research aims.

Two of our graduate research assistants — Miriam Muñoz and Colleen Ward — participated in research that was presented at virtual conferences during the fall semester. Dr. Jennifer Mack presented work, co-authored with Lauren Hourican and Miriam Muñoz, at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language; Ward presented at the Academy of Aphasia (see this post for access to both posters). While presenting in a virtual format was different than we are all used to, it was still a great experience for all involved. Both of our presenters did a wonderful job and we look forward to our members who will be presenting in the spring!

Additionally, Miriam Muñoz participated in ASHA’s Minority Student Leadership Program in the fall semester. This is a highly competitive leadership program, only accepting up to 40 students each year to participate during the annual ASHA Convention. We are so proud of Miriam for achieving this accomplishment!

Below: An image of the Fall 2020 NOLA Lab team 🙂 We are so excited for all that’s in store for the spring semester!