Priya as a post-doctoral fellow in 2011.
Dr. Padmapriya (Priya) Kandhadai first joined the Infant Studies Centre as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in 2010. She was a perfect fit for the team, bringing immensely valuable and complimentary knowledge from her MSc in Computer Science (Virginia Tech) and PhD in Cognitive Psychology (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign). She was hired full-time as Research Associate thereafter in 2012, taking on administrative duties relating to finance, ethics, and HR; technical duties relating to the Centre’s many research methodologies (e.g. neuroimaging via NIRS; read more about our methodologies here); as well as further pursuing research on language development with a particular focus on bilingual acquisition in early childhood.
Priya (middle) greeting parents at Science World with graduate students Kyle Danielson (left) and Shunfu Hu (right) for the 2016 Bilingual Babies public lecture by Dr. Janet Werker.
One of Priya’s recent studies on the different word-learning strategies used by bilingual vs monolingual infants is set to be published in a 2017 special issue of Developmental Science (full text of this article can be requested here). During her time at the Centre, Priya also regularly taught courses on cognitive science in the Cognitive Systems interdisciplinary undergraduate program at UBC (read more about the COGS program here).
After six fantastic years, Priya is moving on to teach computer science full-time at Douglas College. We are absolutely thrilled for her and wish her all the very best! The Centre will never be the same without her and we will think of her often and fondly.
Thank you and farewell, Priya!