Dr Francesca Branzi PhD

Personal Statement

I am a cognitive neuroscientist with a background in psycholinguistics interested in the neural basis of language and semantic cognition. In 2015, I completed a PhD on the cognitive and neural correlates of language production and executive function in multilingual speakers at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain), supported by a Fellowship from the Spanish Government (FPU). From this, I gained experience working with fMRI and ERP/EEG methods. In 2015, I was a postdoctoral scientist at the Basque Center for Cognition, Brain and Language (San Sebastian, Spain). In 2016, I was a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Manchester and then at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (University of Cambridge) where I worked on different projects on the neural basis of semantic cognition using naturalistic tasks (narratives, music), computational linguistic methods, fMRI and rTMS. In summer 2021, I began a lectureship position at the University of Liverpool.


Research Interests and Approach

Language is one of the few uniquely human cognitive abilities and a key feature of human interactions with communicative intent. Not surprisingly, language is at the basis of our culture and civilisation.
What cognitive and neural mechanisms enable us to produce and understand language? How does language cognition interact with other cognitive domains? The goal of our research program is to address these questions and provide a detailed characterisation of the brain regions and cognitive processes that support language in different populations, including individuals who speak one or more languages (multilinguals) and neurological patients. Our research is characterised by a multi-disciplinary and multi-method approach (e.g., patient studies and cognitive neuroscience methods) and prioritises the use of tasks that resemble as much as possible to real-life experiences.

Are you looking for an internship, PhD or post-doc position? If you are interested, please look at my research interests and publications, and email me your CV.

Supervision

Eszter Dermikan (PhD, 2021-present)
Yi Hao (PhD, October 2023)