lab lab alumni
Yina Quique
Yina Quique (“Gina Key-Keh”) is a speech and language pathologist from Colombia. She completed her Ph.D. in Communication Science and Disorders at the University of Pittsburgh in 2020, working with Dr. Michael Walsh Dickey and Dr. Will Evans.
She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University (Center for Education in Health Sciences) working on aphasia rehabilitation research combined with healthcare service delivery and outcomes research. As a Fulbright scholar, she is committed to investigating factors that improve aphasia treatment outcomes and to develop culturally sensitive and language-specific assessments and treatments for Spanish speakers with aphasia
Outside academia, she enjoys hiking and good coffee.
@yinaquique
Becca Hayes
Rebecca Hayes is a Research Associate in the Neuroscience of Risk and Development lab at the University of Pittsburgh, and an adjunct instructor in the Speech Language Pathology department at Duquesne University. Her research interests include cognitive aging and its potential impacts on implicit learning and neurorehabilitation. She received her PhD from the Communication Science and Disorders department at the University of Pittsburgh in 2018.
Contact Information:
Evelyn Milburn
Evelyn Milburn was a member of the LABlab team from 2011-2017, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In her research, she investigates how meaning emerges from both linguistic and non-linguistic sources during language comprehension, with particular focus on the interaction between world knowledge and verb constraints, as well as the role of gesture in communication. She is also interested in figurative language, particularly idioms, and in how comprehenders with different language backgrounds overcome the processing challenges associated with figurative language.
Kristen Nunn
Kristen Nunn was a member of the LABlab team from 2014-2018 and is now a PhD student at MGH Institute of Health Professions. Kristen is interested in how corrective feedback during aphasia treatment influences learning. She is also interested in how people with aphasia make adaptations to optimize communication.
Contact Information: Knunn@mghihp.edu
Haley Dressang
Haley Dresang worked with Dr. Dickey and the LABlab throughout her doctoral program. She completed her Ph.D. in Communication Science & Disorders with a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience from the CNBC. In 2020, she was awarded an NIH T32 fellowship to advance translational neurorehabilitation research at Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute and the University of Pennsylvania (Perelman School of Medicine, Neurology Department).
Dr. Dresang's research characterizes how unimpaired neurocognitive resources can be leveraged to improve communication impairments following neurological injury. Her current research engages intact semantic networks (via neuromodulation and multimodal behavioral interventions) to facilitate word retrieval in patients with stroke-induced aphasia.
Contact Information:
DresangH@PennMedicine.UPenn.edu
@HaleyDresang (on Twitter)
Chia-Ming ‘Able’ Lei
Abel Lei is a research coordinator of Neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine who is in charge of patient recruitment and behavioral data collection at the acute stroke units and ICUs in multiple hospitals in the Medical Center region, and behavioral and neuroimaging data collection for chronic stroke patients in Houston metropolitan area. He is involved in projects investigating the verbal outputs from single-word to discourse level among patients after left hemisphere stroke. LABlab’s tremendous support during his PhD study at Pitt built the foundation of his passion in contributing to the operation of the machine of Science. In LABlab, Abel is known as a tea maniac, orchid whisperer, and sakura dreamer.
Michelle Colvin
Michelle Colvin is currently a visiting assistant professor in the psychology department at the College of Wooster. She teaches courses in both psychology and neuroscience and advises four students on their Independent Study (IS) senior research projects.
LABlab member: 2014-2020
Research interests:
adaptation during reading comprehension
nature and role of cognitive control during language processing
