Suzanne Welcome

Dr. Suzanne Welcome is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL). She earned a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, Riverside (2008) and a BS in Psychobiology from the University of Southern California (2001). She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Western Ontario from 2008 to 2012 before joining UMSL in 2012. Her research focuses on individual differences in language ability, reading development, and the neural mechanisms underlying reading strategies in children and adults. She investigates how phonological, orthographic, and semantic skills interact across development and how variability in these processes informs reading impairments.

Dr. Welcome has received notable awards, including the Dean's Distinguished Fellowship (2003–2008) and the Trustee Scholarship (1997–2001). Her work bridges behavioral neurobiology and cognitive psychology, emphasizing the need to understand neural and cognitive diversity in reading. Her recent publications explore neuroimaging techniques (e.g., ERPs) to uncover how orthographic and phonological processing differ between children and adults, as well as individual differences in reading strategies.

Her research narrative emphasizes grant-funded studies on reading compensation mechanisms and typical/atypical development. She has supervised postdoctoral and research assistant roles, contributing to collaborative projects in behavioral neuroscience. Though no lab affiliations are explicitly stated, her work aligns with interdisciplinary teams studying cognitive and neural underpinnings of language.