Alex Cristia joined the LSCP for the first time in 2009 as a postdoctoral fellow, after obtaining a PhD in linguistics at Purdue University (USA). From 2011 to 2012, she was a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. In 2013 she returned to the LSCP where she held a researcher position at the CNRS. She defended her HDR in 2014 and became "Directrice de recherche" (research director) five years later.  

Her work focuses on how young children learn their mother tongue. The aim is to shed light on the learning mechanisms involved in the language acquisition process. Alex Cristia uses a cognitive science approach (drawing on developmental psychology, linguistics, anthropology), and uses multiple methodologies (including corpus analysis, behavioral studies, computational modelling).

In her current work, she extends this interdisciplinary and large-scale approach to rarely studied cultures, particularly those described as having cultural or linguistic properties that may impact acquisition. This line of investigation allows us to assess the resilience of language acquisition processes, which has both theoretical and practical implications.

FOR MORE INFO

• CNRS website
• Alex Cristia's website