Julia Festman

Julia Festman is a Professor of Multilingualism at the University College for Teacher Education Tyrol (PHT). She leads the Institute for Primary Education and chairs the national focus area for German language teaching in primary education. Her academic roles include heading the Multilingualism Unit in the West Cluster and directing the Language Lab (INnalp). She contributes to editorial boards of journals like Frontiers in Psychology and the International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Festman holds a PhD from Bar-Ilan University (Israel) and habilitation from the University of Potsdam (Germany), with research focused on multilingualism, cognitive linguistics, and educational pedagogy.

Education & Career:

• 2017: Full Professorship for Multilingualism, PHT
• 2016: Visiting Professor for Empirical Childhood Research, University of Potsdam
• 2015: Habilitation (venia legendi) in Linguistics, University of Potsdam
• 2004: PhD in Linguistics (Psycholinguistics), Bar-Ilan University
• 1999–2003: MA in Germanic Studies, Humboldt University Berlin

Research Interests: Multilingualism’s cognitive and educational implications, literacy development, multilingual pedagogy, neurodidactics, and inclusive education strategies. She emphasizes leveraging linguistic diversity as a resource in classrooms.

Grants & Projects:

• EU-funded AI2PI (2025–2028): AI-driven pedagogical innovations
• LESEN Förderkoffer (2024–2028): Diagnostic literacy tools
• Digital Literacy Hub (2022–2025): Tablet-based writing studies
• BMBWF Summer School (2020–2025): Multilingualism education

Labs & Teams: Director of the Language Lab (INnalp), focusing on literacy innovation (e.g., digital audiostyluses for language learning).