Anna Samara
Lecturer (Teaching)
University College London
About me
I am a Lecturer (Teaching) based in UCL’s Division of Psychology and Language Sciences. I study literacy and language acquisition processes using artificial language learning methods, that is, experiments whereby children and adults learn experimenter designed miniatures languages. One central strand of this work investigates how children learn probabilistic relationships between sound and letter combinations via statistical learning processes. I am also interested in how these processes contribute to dyslexia and sociolinguistic development.
Short bio: I completed my PhD in Psychology at Bangor University, UK in 2014. My doctoral research was funded by a Marie Curie Initial Training Network initiative. Thereafter I completed postdoctoral work at UCL (2014-2017) and the University of Liverpool (2017-2019), some of which I continue to this day with collaborators at Oxford University.
Before joining UCL as Lecturer, I was Senior Lecturer at the University of Greenwich (2019-2022).
Interests
- Spelling development
- Statistical learning
- Artificial language learning
- Dyslexia
- Sociolinguistics
- Bayes Factors
Education
-
PhD Psychology, 2014
Bangor University, UK
-
MSc Cognitive Neuropsychology, 2008
University College London, UK
-
BSc in Psychology, 2006
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
