Asli Ozyurek

Prof. Aslı Özyürek is a full Professor at Radboud University's Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior and Director of the Multimodal Language Department at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen. Her work bridges linguistics, cognitive science, and AI, focusing on multimodal language use in speech, gesture, and sign across cultures.

Education: BA in Psychology from Boğaziçi University (Istanbul), PhD in Linguistics/Psychology from University of Chicago. Affiliations include the Center for Language Studies and Donders Institute. Awards include ERC Starting Grant, NWO VIDI/VICI grants, and membership in Academia Europea.

Research explores cognitive foundations of language, cross-linguistic diversity, and applications in education/technology. Key projects include spatial cognition in bimodal bilinguals, gesture-speech integration in children, and emergent sign languages. Supervised over a dozen PhD students and led large-scale grants.

Labs: Head of Multimodal Language and Cognition Lab (MPI, Radboud University). Coordinates the Nijmegen Gesture Center. Advocates for inclusive science practices and global accessibility in linguistics.