Dr. Lauren Emberson (she/her/hers) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Arts. She directs the Baby Learning Lab, which is part of UBC's Early Development Research Group, a consortium focused on infant and child development. Prior to her position at UBC, Dr. Emberson was an Assistant Professor at Princeton University where she co-founded and co-directed the Princeton Baby and Princeton Kid Labs. Education: Postdoctoral Associate, University of Rochester (PI Aslin) Ph.D, Cornell University (PIs Amso, Goldstein, Spivey) B.Sc, University of British Columbia Dr. Emberson's research focuses on learning, perception (audition, vision, crossmodal or multisensory), language development, face/object perception, and attention in infants. She investigates these capacities using behavioral and neuroimaging techniques, particularly fNIRS (functional near infrared spectroscopy), working primarily with very young infants (birth through 1 year) and preterm/premature infants. Her work examines how infants' learning capacities contribute to rapid development of perception in ecological contexts, with implications for understanding how early life experiences affect later outcomes. Analysis of Dr. Emberson's recent publications reveals a consistent focus on infant perception, learning mechanisms, and neuroimaging methodology. Her work increasingly incorporates advanced fNIRS techniques while maintaining focus on fundamental questions about how infants learn from their environment. There's a growing emphasis on individual differences, cross-cultural comparisons, and applications to infants facing developmental challenges. Dr. Emberson serves on the editorial board of Infancy (journal of the International Congress of Infancy Studies) and is a consulting editor for the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience . Her research has been published in top journals including PNAS, Current Biology, Psychological Science, Cognition, Developmental Science, and the Journal of Neuroscience. Dr. Emberson has secured significant research funding from prestigious organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, James S. McDonnell Foundation, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She collaborates with clinicians at BC Women's and Children's Hospitals to understand how different early life experiences impact learning and brain development. Dr. Emberson is currently accepting graduate students into her research program. The Baby Learning Lab, under Dr. Emberson's direction, is part of UBC's Early Developmental Research Group and collaborates with multiple institutions. The lab strives to provide interactive research experiences for infants and families while advancing scientific understanding of early cognitive development. The lab acknowledges that it operates on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people.
