Jill is a developmental psychologist interested in the interaction between cognition and language. She has studied this from the perspective of first and second language development, with a particular focus on event language and cognition (eg motion events). Her work has compared the ways people use and learn language across different language types, such as English and Spanish or Mandarin.

Jill's work also addresses the ways that people, both children and adults, engage with language in everyday or informal contexts and how this may relate more broadly to scientific and other 'world knowledge'. For example, her research has addressed parent-child conversation about species origin and change, and how children's conceptual development about evolution may relate to these conversations. Jill's research takes place in the laboratory, in homes, schools and museums.

Her co-authored book with Theano Moussouri, Museum learning: Theory and research as tools for enhancing practice, was published by Routledge in 2018.

Research

Jill's research interests are related to:

• Cognitive development, particularly as related to language development.
• First language development.
• The cognition of bilingualism.
• Event language and cognition.
• Family conversation and conceptual development.
• Museum learning.
• Systematic coding of conversation and text.
• Understanding biological and environmental science through social engagement.

Teaching

Jill teaches students at all levels in the school:

• BA English Language & Linguistics: Language Development; Language, Culture & Mind
• MA module (open to multiple degrees): Psychology and Learning
• MA Language and Cultural Diversity: Language, Culture & Mind
• Quantitative Methodology teaching: PhD basics of quantitative methods; MA dissertation workshops on quantitative methods

PhD supervision

Jill is happy to work with new doctoral students in the following areas: 

• language and cognition and the development of each informal contexts and science learning,
• museum learning,
• parent-child conversation as related to conceptual development,
• inter-relations between science and humanities education,
• event language and cognition,
• bilingual language development study of text as related to learning.

Further information

For further details, you can view Jill's research staff profile.