Fiona Borská

My fascination with languages has been present ever since I can remember and manifested itself in taking high-level language subjects at school, a strong affinity for writing, years of teaching English to 5-10 year old children, and various bite-size forms of related extracurricular trivia. After completing my high school subjects, half of which were language subjects, I steered away from languages in the academic world for 5 years and came to the Netherlands to do a Psychology Bachelor and a Cognitive Neuroscience Master. I enjoyed being employed as an EEG research assistant and completing two empirical research theses, one of which was cognitive-behavioral and one computational with a focus on base-level cognition – but language was still not involved in my academic activities until finally in my PhD. Most importantly, I was especially excited to embark on a project that investigates language via its most base-level components: audiovisual learning and cognitive substrates of literacy development. The M-BIC Language Lab turned out to offer the best practical synthesis of my skills, experience, interests, and affinities.