Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto to present at Second Annual Georgetown University Free Neuroscience Public Lecture at Georgetown University

Washington, D.C. – March 11, 2016 – Dr. Laura-Ann Petitto,
co-PI and scientific director of the NSF and Gallaudet
University Science of Learning Center for
Visual Language and Visual Learning,
will be a distinguished speaker at the
Second Annual Georgetown
University Free Neuroscience Public Lecture on Wednesday, March 16.

Dr. Petitto, also scientific director of the VL2 resource hub
Brain and Language Laboratory for Neuroimaging,
will present groundbreaking, state-of-the-art research on biological
foundations of language in the brain in “Universals of Early Language,
Reading, and the Brain as Revealed Through the Eyes.”  

Dr. Petitto
is known for her role in the creation of the new discipline Educational
Neuroscience, and she is one of the founders, as well as chair,
of the steering committee of Gallaudet’s new Ph.D. in Educational
Neuroscience – the first program of its kind to be created in
the United States. Dr. Petitto is renowned for her scientific
discoveries concerning language and its neural representation
in the human brain, cross-species research on the nature of language and
communication in chimpanzees, how young children learn language,
the shared signed and spoken language processing systems in the human brain,
the bilingual brain (including sign and spoken bilinguals) and the
reading brain (including how young signing children use a Visual
Sign Phonology en route to deriving meaning from print English).

The public lecture, hosted by Georgetown University in recognition of Brain Awareness Week,
is at 6 p.m. at the American Association for the Advancement of Science auditorium,
1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005. A question-and-answer panel and
informal reception will follow the lecture. American Sign Language interpreters
will be provided. Admission is free but registration is required (click here to register).

Please RSVP at http://goo.gl/forms/6UIwVN0U49.

Contact:
Kaitlin Luna, Coordinator of Media and Public Relations

(202) 448-7106 voice
(202) 250-2973 videophone
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Please contact us for more information.