Nicole Conrad

Nicole Conrad is a Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department at Saint Mary’s University, with an adjunct appointment in Psychology & Neuroscience at Dalhousie University. She serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Reading Research, a Trustee for the SMUFU Health & Wellness Trust, and contributes to the Society of Scientific Study of Reading’s Executive Board.

• Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (Saint Mary’s University)
• PhD in Experimental Psychology (McMaster University)

Dr. Conrad’s research examines literacy acquisition through cognitive and orthographic lenses, focusing on how children encode, store, and retrieve orthographic information to improve reading and spelling. Her work explores sub-lexical knowledge, graphotactic regularities, and the impact of spelling instruction on reading fluency, supported by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Her recent publications span orthographic learning, literacy development, and digital literacy’s cognitive effects, reflecting interdisciplinary approaches to understanding reading mechanisms across languages and populations. These studies emphasize memory encoding, cross-modal transfer, and educational interventions.