Reflections from our IMPRS Alumni

Antje Stoehr, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow 2020-2021 and postdoctoral researcher at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain:

“The IMPRS provided me with a broader perspective on language science: I started to understand how my own research was embedded in the big picture, and I learned to explain my work to researchers from different fields. I’m still amazed by the wealth of connections between fields I discovered during my time at the IMPRS. For example, I had never expected that sign languages have a phonological system! Alongside my PhD, I worked with numerous students and research assistants, engaged in teaching, and spent 9 months in the USA. My experience at the IMPRS helped me decide on a scientific career as my future goal, which will hopefully never be limited by national borders. I now have the privilege of carrying out bilingualism research in the Basque Country, where I have access to a bilingual community, fully-equipped labs run by professional research assistants and three beaches right in front of my door.”

Luis Miguel Rojas-Berscia, postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL), University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia:

“I remember my first mock presentation and Steve Levinson’s comments. I was terrified! But we then had an amazing meeting. I also remember the intellectually challenging conversations with Professor Pieter Seuren after lunch, which made me think twice before making any far-fetched statement—and always take history into account. I was also fascinated by the work carried out in Simon Fisher’s lab, analysing the multilingual brain from a cross-disciplinary perspective. Something I have noticed is the negligence of South American scholarship in European and Western academic circles. I think this has to change, not just by inviting students to pursue their careers in Europe or America, but by bringing scholars from South America and giving them the chance to share their ideas and findings. I am now working as a (field) linguist, looking at the dynamics behind language variation and emergence in multilingual indigenous communities in the Amazon and Australia.”

Sara Iacozza, behavioral insight researcher for Digital Attitude in Milan, working from home in Bari, Italy:

“I vividly remember sitting down on the couch with Eirini, Laurel, Amie, and Limor to share my crazy idea about starting R-Ladies Nijmegen, to support interaction and collaboration among women using R. Since then, I also joined R-Ladies Bari and recently co-founded R-Ladies Italy. During my PhD I also volunteered as local manager for Pint of Science Nijmegen (a festival to increase public awareness of science). These experiences have shaped my career path tremendously. Nowadays, there is more awareness of my research topic, in-group biases on language processing, mostly because it became more relevant for current affairs. Events like the establishment of Trump’s policies on immigration, the widening gender gap in certain professional sectors, and the increased attention for diversity and inclusion policies made the understanding of in-group biases on human cognition even more crucial.”

Beyza Sümer, lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and research assistant at the MPI in Nijmegen, the Netherlands:

“I have always been fascinated by language and the brain. Besides the intellectually enriching environment, the IMPRS exposed me to a wonderful mix of people from different cultures. Even so, I believe we can further increase diversity and equal opportunities in the language sciences by employing more students, senior researchers and directors from non-European backgrounds. Looking back, my fondest memories were the moment I finished my PhD defence and my first academic presentation. My passion for the language sciences remains strong, and I now introduce my students at the University of Amsterdam to the wonderland of sign language linguistics.”

Xiaochen Zheng, postdoctoral researcher at the Motivation and Cognitive Control Lab, Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands:

“Too many great moments to remember: the Friday Afternoon Drinks, the Batavierenrace, the Donders sailing week, and the Sinterklaas parties... I was also an active member of the Donders Devils running club until it slowly died out, and the Donders Volleyball team till everyone stopped playing… (nothing to do with me!). … I was part of the Donders Repository project, working towards data sharing in open science, and also co-organised the Donders Discussions, an international PhD conference in cognitive neuroscience.”

“There is definitely more public awareness for language research. Nowadays, if you are not on Twitter, you are living like a caveman: waking up in the morning, hearing everyone talking excitingly about this awesome brilliant mind-blowing preprint which came out yesterday, and only you are like… “what is that?” So this is your chance to follow my research on twitter (@xwhyzheng)! I am currently investigating the neural and cognitive mechanism of inference in language and action planning, using a combination of functional MRI and computational modelling.”

Gwilym Lockwood, Commercial Transformation Manager at Asda in Leeds, UK:

“I remember the little things, like having a coffee with somebody and suddenly working out how to design an experiment or frame an argument. I was an MPG Open Access Ambassador for the last year or so of my PhD, which helped me rethink a lot of the ways I worked, both in academia and in industry afterwards. The Art of Presenting Science course was really helpful, again for both academia and industry. Being in an interdisciplinary institute meant there was a lot of communication – and sometimes miscommunication! – about how things are done within and between fields. That got me really interested in the metascience side of things, like open science, data ethics, and data visualisation, which has shaped my career ever since. It was great to be surrounded by so many different and interesting people at such an impressionable stage of my career.”

Jiyoun Choi, assistant professor at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul, South-Korea:

“My most defining moment of PhD life were those mornings where I could see the smiley faces of my officemates Susanne, Patrick, Katja, and Wencui. When attending group meetings, lunch talks, and other invited talks, I often found myself longing to learn more about linguistics, especially phonetics. I finally ended up doing my postdoc with the phonetician Taehong Cho, who had visited the Comprehension group—to which I belonged—once a year. MPI colleagues shared my first journal publication through social media. This helped many people outside academia to learn about my research. If we explain our research in simple language, then I truly believe that people will get interested in language studies more and more. I think the IMPRS plan to provide pre-doctoral training to under-represented groups will help to enhance diversity and equal opportunities. I now give lectures on topics such as psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, and do research with my graduate students, who inspire me with their enthusiasm and brilliant research ideas!"

Elliott Hoey, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Basel, Switzerland:

“The MPI was and will probably remain the most intellectually scintillating atmosphere I have ever been in. On a ‘Welcome to Nijmegen’ tour of the city, I met fellow PhD student Will Schuerman, who snuck me into a workshop event that had an open bar. Three years later, we’d grown to calling one another best friends. Having the privilege of working out my ideas in an environment of such diversity and breadth of expertise helped me situate my own concerns and see how they could possibly link up to those of others. In my research, I scrutinise audio and video recordings in painstaking detail, to find out how people do things like ‘begin an interaction while walking up to someone’, ‘use the construction let me X’, and ‘take a drink in the midst of conversation’. Soon, I will start at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as an assistant professor.”

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