Postdoctoral Researcher

I completed my Ph.D. at the LSCP in Paris (Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique) under the supervision of Dr. Alejandrina Cristia. My dissertation focused on how language outcomes vary as a function of socioeconomic and ecological conditions.

Currently, I hold two postdoctoral positions. At the Human Ecology Group (Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich), I work with Dr. Adrian Jaeggi, exploring whether mental health-related conditions are present and how they manifest among the Tsimane’, a contemporary Amazonian forager-horticulturalist society. In parallel, I continue my collaboration with Dr. Cristia at the LSCP in Paris, where I investigate language acquisition across cultures, focusing on Tsimane’ language.

Most of what we know in early development and psychopathology comes from research conducted on “Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic” (WEIRD) populations that are easily studied, given the location of most research labs. WEIRD developmental and living conditions are neither representative of most contemporary humans nor representative of the situation that humankind has experienced for most of its evolutionary history, which is probably better captured by contemporary small-scale societies. There is much less information about the environment, learning and coping mechanisms, and developmental milestones of individuals growing up in small-scale societies. Addressing this gap requires an interdisciplinary approach that integrates insights from anthropology, psychology, linguistics, and psychiatry. I actively collaborate with researchers from these fields to standardize methods that allow for meaningful comparisons across diverse populations with different languages, lifestyles, and caregiving practices. These efforts have broad implications for our understanding of linguistic and cognitive diversity.

My dissertation was funded by Paris Diderot and the Ecole Doctorale FIRE-Programme Bettencourt.
My postdoc in Zurich has benefited from the support of the Pierre Mercier Fondation pour la Science, and my position in Paris is supported by the ExeLang ERC grant.