Sebastian Sauppe

Sebastian Sauppe is a Senior Assistant and Ambizione Fellow at the University of Zurich's Department of Psychology, where he leads the research area 'Cognitive and Developmental Neuroscience of Language' within the Developmental Psychology: Infancy and Childhood unit. His work bridges language processing, cognitive neuroscience, and ontogenetic development, with fieldwork conducted on under-researched languages including Äiwoo in Solomon Islands.

• Education: Recipient of Max Planck Society's Otto Hahn medal for psycholinguistic dissertation work
• Current Roles: SNSF Ambizione grant holder, National Geographic Explorer

Dr. Sauppe's research focuses on linguistic diversity and language processing, examining how grammatical structures interact with real-time comprehension and production. His work on incremental processing investigates neural mechanisms of sentence construction, while event cognition studies explore how language shapes semantic role representation. He also examines child development of language-cognition interfaces and interactive language use in social contexts. His methodology combines mobile EEG, eye-tracking, and behavioral paradigms across diverse linguistic environments.

Analysis of his recent publications reveals strong emphasis on cross-linguistic validation of processing principles (particularly agent preference phenomena), neural correlates of syntactic variation, and methodological innovation in field psycholinguistics. His work consistently bridges theoretical linguistics with cognitive neuroscience, with increasing focus on developmental trajectories.

• National Geographic Explorer (awarded by National Geographic Society)
• Otto Hahn Medal (Max Planck Society for outstanding dissertation work)

As an Ambizione grant holder, Dr. Sauppe leads independent research while mentoring junior researchers. His fieldwork in Solomon Islands demonstrates commitment to ecological validity and linguistic diversity. Current projects involve mobile EEG studies of language processing in naturalistic settings and cross-species comparisons of event cognition with great apes. His research group collaborates extensively across Europe and with field linguists worldwide, developing novel paradigms for studying language in under-documented contexts.

Dr. Sauppe maintains active laboratory work at the University of Zurich while conducting periodic field expeditions. His team utilizes mobile neuroimaging equipment for cross-cultural studies and collaborates with primatology researchers on comparative cognition projects. The lab emphasizes methodological rigor in both controlled laboratory and naturalistic field settings.