Language

Lynn Kurteff, PhD, CF-SLP, is a postdoctoral scholar in the ALBA Lab at the UCSF Edward and Pearl Fein Memory and Aging Center. Their research focuses on primary progressive aphasia (PPA), exploring the complex relationship between neurodegenerative diseases and the coordination of motor systems during speech production.

Shirley was born in Guangzhou, China, and grew up in Los Angeles. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in pharmacology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. During her undergraduate studies, she worked as a certified pharmacy technician, gaining patient care experience in the emergency department and on the surgical nursing floor at USC Arcadia Hospital.

Rayna was born and raised in Shenzhen, China. She holds an MPhil in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Cambridge and dual BA degrees in English and Digital Media from the University of Rochester. At the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, she works as a clinical research coordinator in Dr. Tee’s lab, supporting study coordination and participant engagement for Chinese-speaking populations.

Joanne (Joe) Wu was born in Taishan, China, and moved to San Francisco at a young age. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in human biology from the University of California, San Diego. As an undergraduate researcher in the Zheng Lab at UC San Diego School of Medicine, she focused on spinal cord regeneration in mouse models.

Ally earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2025. During her undergraduate studies, she worked as a research assistant investigating the emergence of social awareness and bias in young children. Currently, Ally serves as an assistant clinical research coordinator at the ALBA Lab’s Dyslexia Center at UCSF. She is passionate about child development and clinical psychology and plans to continue advancing her research and expertise in these fields.

Paula earned her medical degree from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru. She joined the ALBA Lab as a research assistant on the Multitudes project and is currently working as an assistant clinical research coordinator at the Dyslexia Center.

Nilgoun Bahar, SLP, PhD, is a postdoctoral research scholar in the ALBA Lab at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, where she works primarily on the Dyslexia Project. She earned her PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Oxford’s Brain, Speech, and Language Lab and holds a clinical master’s degree in speech-language pathology from the University of Toronto. She completed her clinical residency at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto.

Nicoletta holds a PhD degree in Psychological Sciences and Education from the University of Trento and a Master’s degree in Linguistics and Cognitive Studies from the University of Siena. Her research bridges theoretical linguistics and cognitive neuroscience to investigate how linguistic information is processed in the brain across different populations, including healthy and brain-injured monolingual and bilingual adults, using methods such as eye-tracking, EEG, and neuroimaging.

Dr. Siebert is a quantitative researcher interested in linguistically equitable measurement in education and its influence on multilingual students’ educational trajectories. He is a Postdoctoral Scholar with UCSF’s Multitudes Project where he works on building a linguistically fair reading screener for Californian public schools.