Hélène Deacon | Lab Director
I am interested in how children take their first steps into reading, and how they become expert readers. We work with children and adults from across Canada and around the world; it is vital that we understand how children learn to read and write in English, as well as in other languages, including growing up bilingually. This knowledge is important for testing theories of reading development, as well as for developing best-practices in education. I am always grateful for partnerships with students, teachers and the educational community in our research. Outside of the academic sphere, I love to spend time exploring my community and the great outdoors, especially with my family.
Stef Hartlin | Lab Manager
I completed my BSc and MSc at Dalhousie University with a focus on developmental psychology. I have been working as a lab manager for a number of years and consider myself to be among the lucky few who truly LOVE their job. I get to earn my living helping answer questions about how the world works. How amazing is that?! Although I enjoy all aspects of research, I am really passionate about experimental design and working directly with families and children. Outside of the lab you can find me at my cabin in the Musquodoboit Valley with my husband, dogs, and chickens enjoying the great outdoors and rural living. I joined the Language & Literacy Lab (LLL) in 2019 and look forward to working with the wonderful researchers, students, and staff of the LLL as well as the amazing families who make our research possible!
Research Staff
Emma Hak-Kovacs | Research Coordinator
I hold a Master of Information from Dalhousie University, a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Psychology from the University of Guelph, and a certificate in User Experience from the University of Toronto. I am passionate about information, community, and providing services which place people at the centre. I am committed to helping people feel confident and prepared to navigate today's modern landscape by promoting information and digital literacy, as well as fostering a love for knowledge through reading, research, and data. I joined the Lab as Research Coordinator in June 2025, where I am contributing to our research on children's literacy, supporting the research team, and helping to share our findings.
Erin MacDougall | Research Assistant
I am fourth-year undergraduate student at Dalhousie majoring in psychology and minoring in sociology. I joined the Language & Literacy lab as a research assistant in January 2024. I love to learn, and I am excited to embrace the opportunity to do so in a research setting. In this role, I am eager to expand my understanding of language development and contribute to ongoing research. During my free time I enjoy reading, spending time with my friends and family, and playing with my cats.
Gracie MacDougall | Research Assistant
I joined the lab in Fall 2025 as a Research Assistant. After completing my Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a concentration in Developmental Psychology and minor in Neuroscience and Mental Health at Carleton University in 2023, I gained valuable experience in developmental research while working with the Cooperation and Social Development Lab at St. Francis Xavier University. My research interests focus on how academic environments influence learning and social dynamics in school settings. Outside of the lab, I enjoy reading and trying new food spots in the city!
Postdoctoral Fellows
Emilie Courteau
I joined the lab in January 2022 as a Mitacs intern for a project on children’s literacy. I am completing my PhD, with a supervision at the University of Montreal and co-supervision at McGill University. My dissertation focused on grammatical and lexical-semantic processing by French-speaking adolescents with and without developmental language disorders. For my thesis, I investigated oral language comprehension at the behavioral level with linguistic tasks and at the neurocognitive level with the electroencephalography (EEG) technique. Prior to my PhD studies, I worked as a clinical speech-language pathologist and collaborated on a research project that developed an approach to promote speech-language services in the community. In my free time, I enjoy biking, cross-country skiing, and watching movies with my husband and cat.
Sofia Giatzitzidou
In July 2021, I received my PhD in Educational Psychology from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. My dissertation focused on the underlying skills of oral and silent reading fluency in students with and without dyslexia. Particularly, I investigated the relations of morphological awareness and orthographic knowledge with reading fluency, exploring the mediating role of phonological awareness, vocabulary, and processing speed and how these relations differ in students with and without dyslexia. I have also worked on a research program on digital reading, examining its effect on reading comprehension employed eye-tracking technology. I have offered courses at the University of Crete and Frederick University for learning disabilities. I have 10+ years of experience in teaching students with learning disabilities, particularly those with dyslexia. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, skiing, and traveling.
Shuqi Yu
I joined the lab in September 2025 as a Postdoctoral Fellow. I earned my Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Science from Virginia Tech in the United States, and my B.S. in Psychology from Beijing Normal University in Beijing, China. My research focuses on leveraging technology (e.g., social robots, AI-powered systems) to support children’s learning, with careful attention to individual differences and sociocultural contexts. Broadly, I am interested in children’s language and literacy development, particularly in understanding and fostering their reading skills and habits in today’s multimodal, media-rich world. In my free time, I enjoy playing badminton, doing Pilates, hiking, reading, and spending time with friends.
Graduate Students
Alex Ryken | Experimental Psychology PhD
I joined the lab in 2017 for my MSc in Experimental Psychology and then started the PhD program in 2019. I’m interested in the metalinguistic skills which underlie reading ability, and am especially interested in punctuation and how prosodic sensitivity (an awareness of the rhythmic components of language) contributes to early reading development. I’ve been fortunate to receive a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship and a Nova Scotia Graduate Scholarship to support my PhD studies.
I moved to Halifax from London, Ontario where I completed my Hons. BA in Psychology at Huron University College at Western University. In my spare time I love to read, travel, and explore the city.
Mariam Elgendi | Clinical Psychology PhD
I joined the Language and Literacy Lab during my third year of undergraduate studies, initially as a research assistant (supported by NSERC funding for two summers), and later pursued an honors thesis within the same lab. Following this, I began my PhD in Clinical Psychology in September 2020, continuing my research endeavors within the lab. Currently, my research interests include investigating the impact of COVID-19-mandated homeschooling on parent and child mental health, exploring mental health and substance use patterns among university students with a history of reading difficulties, and assessing the contribution of syntactic skills to reading comprehension across the elementary years. Clinically, I have acquired experience working with children, adolescents, young adults, and families dealing with various behavioral and emotional challenges, including learning disorders, ADHD, mood and anxiety disorders, trauma, substance use, and eating disorders.
Katherine Hoferek | Clinical Psychology PhD
I joined the lab in 2023 for my PhD in Clinical Psychology. I completed my BA (Hons) degree at Carleton University, where I double majored in psychology and linguistics. My thesis focused on how young multilingual adults exposed to English or French post-puberty produce language. I am interested in working on projects involving how digital literacy and syntactic skills impact reading comprehension in children. In my spare time, I love to kayak, go to the gym, hike, and be by the water.​
Undergraduate Students
Kirsty Longino | Honours
I am in my third year studying psychology at Dalhousie. I am excited to join the lab in the Winter 2025 semester where I’ll be completing an independent research project under the supervision of Dr. Deacon. This project involves the development of an orthographic learning task that will be integrated into the lab's ongoing research efforts. I’m passionate about child development and language learning—really anything that helps kids reach their full potential! Outside of school I play for the Dalhousie Women’s Volleyball team and love spending as much time outdoors as possible.
Karina Bouter | Independent Research Project
I'm a third year student double majoring in Psychology and Statistics with a minor in French. I am very excited to be working in the Language and Literacy Lab this school year! I am an avid reader; my favourite genre is biographies. In my free time I enjoy reading, making music, and hanging out with family and friends.
Research Associates
Tamara Sorenson Duncan
I am Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Carleton University. I completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Language and Literacy Lab with funding support from the IWK and Donald Hill Family Fellowships. I continue to collaborate with the Language and Literacy Lab on a number of projects. My research investigates language and literacy development in diverse populations, focusing especially on children who are at risk for academic difficulty. To date, this work has included children from immigrant and refugee backgrounds, children with developmental language disorder and children with autism spectrum disorder.
Bradley Bergey
I joined the lab in January 2014 as a postdoctoral fellow, moving from my hometown of Philadelphia, where I received my PhD in Educational Psychology from Temple University. I am now Assistant Professor, in Secondary Education & Youth Services at Queens College, at the City University of New York, but am also continuing the research I was working on in the lab. My research interests include student motivation and self-regulated learning. My work on the Partnership for Student Success project taps my interests in how motivation and learning strategies relate to success, achievement, and well-being in university students who face unique academic challenges.
Rebecca Tucker
I joined the lab in 2011 as a volunteer, and never left! I completed an independent research project and my honours thesis in the lab before moving on to my graduate research. My research so far has dealt with orthographic learning in children and how they later use that learning when reading other new, related words. I’ve also looked at how we can help to support university students who have a history of reading difficulties and what social/academic aspects of their university experience may affect their decision to stay in university. Outside of the lab most of my time is spent with my son, who was the inspiration for my interest in literacy research! I also enjoy any activity that helps me recover from school/play time – reading, cooking/baking, basketball, knitting, and generally spending time with friends!