News
ASHFoundation New Investigators Research Grant Recipients
✨We are excited to share that our PI, Dr. Kim Crespo, and our postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Kaityn Contino, are recipients of the ASHFoundation 2025 New Investigators Research Grant. ✨ More
2025 UROP Symposium!
✨ The 28th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium✨
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2025 NIDCD T32 Research Day
We were honored to welcome Dr. Elizabeth Norton as the keynote speaker for the 2025 NIDCD T32 Research Day at Boston University! More
ASHFoundation Student Scholarship Receipient
🎊🌟 We are excited to share that our Graduate Research Assistant, Estefanía Narváez, is a recipient of the @ashfoundationcsd student scholarship. 🌟🎊
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Welcome, New Members of BLL!
Words Apart – An Interview with Dr. Crespo
Kimberly Crespo’s understanding of the world has always moved seamlessly between English and Spanish. Her Colombian mother and Puerto Rican father spoke mostly Spanish at home, and Crespo and her three siblings felt at ease alternating between languages in their racially and ethnically diverse Elizabeth, N.J., neighborhood.
“Being able to switch between two languages opens up your world,” she says. “The way that meaning and knowledge are encoded differs across languages. For example, in Spanish, you have multiple words that can index different gradients of love. To me, being bilingual provides a linguistic flexibility that’s important.”
Crespo, an assistant professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences, became interested in language development as a teenager, when her youngest brother was diagnosed with a speech delay. While her mother was working, Crespo would bring him to his speech pathology appointments at the local elementary school. “I was fascinated by this idea of him learning language through play,” she recalls. More
Welcome to the team, Justina!
NC A&T State University-Summer Internship 2025 – Sarah Bunyan
Living Laboratory at the Museum of Science Summer 2024 / Living Laboratory del Museo de la Ciencia de Boston Verano 2024
🌞This summer, we had the amazing opportunity to team up with the Living Laboratory at the Museum of Science!🔬 We connected with kids through fun and interactive language games designed to spark their curiosity about word learning and on how we build connections between the words we know.✨🧐 It was a pleasure to share our passion for research, language, and bilingualism with the community. 🎉💯
Thank you to the @museumofscience and the Living Laboratory for providing us the space, resources and opportunity! 🤗
🌞¡Este verano tuvimos la increíble oportunidad de trabajar con el Living Laboratory del Museo de la Ciencia de Boston (Museum of Science)! 🔬Interactuamos con niños a través de juegos de lenguaje divertidos e interactivos diseñados para despertar su curiosidad sobre el aprendizaje de palabras y sobre cómo construimos conexiones entre las palabras que conocemos. ✨🧐Fue un placer compartir nuestra pasión por la investigación, el lenguaje y el bilingüismo con la comunidad. 🎉💯
¡Muchas gracias al @museumofscience y al Living Laboratory por facilitarnos el espacio, los recursos y la oportunidad! 🤗
NC A&T State University-Summer Internship 2024 – Derron McQuitty
During this past summer, we welcomed Derron McQuitty to the Bilingual Learning Lab. Derron is one of two students who spent 10 weeks during the summer at Boston University as part of the NC A&T State University-Summer Internship 2024. This internship aimed to provide opportunities for students to gain research experience and receive faculty mentorship.
It was a pleasure to welcome you to the lab, Derron! We wish you the best of lucks in your next endeavors. 🎉
2024 BU Women’s Guild Scholarship
We want to congratulate Zoe Devine for being one of only 55 graduate students to receive a 2024 BU Women’s Guild Scholarship.
These scholarships are awarded to women and those who identify as female in Boston University graduate programs, as well as to BU women writers. Since 1977, the BUWG has distributed over $800,000 in scholarships to more than 400 BU graduate students. Zoe was awarded the BU Women's Council Scholarship 🎉.
We are incredibly proud of your work in and out of the Bilingual Learning Lab!
Junior Faculty Fellows Program Award
Dr. Crespo has been selected as one of eight faculty members to be part of the 2024 Junior Faculty Fellows of the Boston University Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering!
The Junior Faculty Fellows Program recognizes outstanding early-career computing and data-driven researchers at Boston University. The program brings together a cohort of junior faculty members to participate in intellectual exchanges and integrative activities. The purpose of this program centers on building connections across disciplines and probing the possibilities of interdisciplinary collaborations.
The 2024 cohort of fellows represents a variety of colleges and schools across Boston University. They are applying computational methods and tools to address complex challenges in diverse fields including astronomy, biostatistics, economics, engineering, neuroscience, political science, sociology, statistical modeling, and speech, language & hearing sciences.
This recognition comes with a $10,000 award to support computational and data science research and the empowerment to help steer the direction of the Hariri Institute-sponsored Distinguished Speaker Series with other Junior Faculty Fellows.
Congratulations to all 2024 Fellows and 2025 Focused Research Program (FRP) award recipients!
Spring 2024 End of Semester Meeting!
✨ Wrapping up the Spring 2024 Semester ! ✨ Here's a recap of the highlights:
👥 Our dedicated team of students came together to reflect on our accomplishments over the past year. From innovative experiments to insightful analyses, we've made significant progress in launching our studies examining how children with different language abilities and language experiences learn words.
🌟 We celebrated the contributions of each member, recognizing their individual projects, presentations, and dedication to our lab's work. Malvi also took the time to create a lab trivia!
🔬 As we look ahead to the future, we're excited to build upon the momentum generated during this year. With fresh ideas and renewed energy, we're poised to embark on new research endeavors that will further enhance our understanding of child language development.
👏 A heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated in our end-of-semester meeting! Your commitment to excellence and culture of inclusivity and collaboration make our research lab truly exceptional and a great place to work and learn!
Center for Career Development’s Code-Switching & the Workplace
We also wanted to give a big shoutout to Malvika who was recently invited to form part of the panel at the Center for Career Development’s Code-Switching & the Workplace event.
This event delved into the challenges faced by BIPOC professionals and offered strategies for achieving authenticity and belonging in the workplace.
You can learn more about it at the BU Career Development blog: https://bu-beyond.blog/2024/04/19/dismantling-bias-embracing-identity/
April’s Research in Progress Meeting
We want to thank Boston University's Wheelock College Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being for inviting Dr. Kimberly Crespo to their April Research in Progress Meeting. It was a privilege to form part of such an inspired conversation. Research in Progress aims to bring together BU faculty and graduate students and community partners to share research focused on young children. The interdisciplinary setting encourages all participants to think beyond their individual frameworks, producing lively conversations and innovative research ideas.
Thank you for the opportunity to share our research! We look forward to future events!
Successful Master’s Thesis Defense – Gabby Rushi
We wanted to congratulate Gabby for successfully defending her Master's Thesis! We are incredibly proud of your work. We also wanted to extend our gratitude to Gabby's committee, Boston University's Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, and all the families who participated in the study for making this possible.
Congratulations, Gabby!!
UROP 2024 Spring Research Recipient!
We are thrilled to share that Paulina Villanueva Salcedo has received funding from Boston University's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), which supports undergraduates conducting research projects under faculty mentorship. Under the direction of Dr. Crespo, Paulina will conduct a study to examine how exposure to multiple speakers and bilingual language experience influences children's productions of novel words. Congrats, Paulina!
To learn more about BU's UROP program, visit https://www.bu.edu/urop/
Boston University’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Presentation!
Congratulations to Renzo on his successful Summer UROP Presentation. Over the summer, Renzo researched the effects of bilingualism and input variability in children’s word-learning. Huge shoutout to everyone who made this possible, especially Dr. Crespo for her guidance, and UROP for providing the funding. We are incredibly proud of your work, Renzo!🎉
Puerto Rico Festival of MA 2023
Throwback to the summer, when we had the honor to attend "The Puerto Rican Festival of MA" with the Bilingual Language Development Lab and the Sound2Syntax Lab from UMass-Amherst. A great reminder of the importance of Hispanic communities!
Recordando el verano cuando tuvimos el honor de atender el Festival puertorriqueño de MA en colaboración con el Laboratorio del Desarrollo Bilingüe y el laboratorio Sound2Syntax de la universidad UMass-Amherst. ¡Un recordatorio importante sobre la importancia de las comunidades hispanas!
Successful Master’s Thesis Prospectus!
Congratulations Gabriela Rushi on successfully presenting your master's thesis prospectus! We are incredibly grateful to the committee, Dr. Perrachione and Tim DeLuca, M.S., CCC-SLP, for their insightful feedback and comments that will strengthen the proposal.
