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Shades of Science Panel Event

When: —
Venue: Online

Book your place

The Diversity in Developmental Science Network is delighted to invite you to our next Shades of Science panel event, taking place virtually on Thursday 29th of January from 3 – 4 pm BST (check the time in your time zone here: https://notime.zone/OZ40oug2NIdAZ).

This event aims to discuss barriers in academia faced by ethnic minority researchers and how to conduct inclusive research with diverse, representative samples in developmental psychology/neuroscience. Our panellists will share their personal experiences, suggestions, and insights for cultivating a more inclusive research culture.

Join us for an engaging discussion featuring distinguished speakers:

Dr. Mojtaba Soltanlou (Assistant Professor, UCL)
Dr. Juhayna Taha (Assistant Professor, UCL)
Dr. Chika Ezeugwu (Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University)

Registration is mandatory, please click on the link below to sign up. You will receive a Teams link for the event closer to the date.

Sign up here: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/jLzQZZtydf

Contact name: Maheen Siddiqui

Speakers
  • Dr Chika Ezeugwu —

    Dr. Chika Ezeugwu is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University's Mind Brain Behavior Initiative and a Research Fellow at Boston Children's Hospital, mentored by Professor Dana McCoy and Professor Charles Nelson. His scientific interests focus on integrating cognition, child development, neuroscience, and education to improve the educational practice and experience of children from low-income contexts, using a mixed-methods approach. Chika leads the “My Pikin Project,” which aims to understand the holistic nature of child development, focusing on cultural contexts and strengths that highlight adaptive skills, resilience, and diverse pathways through which children navigate everyday complexities. His current projects include developing ecological measures of executive functions, evaluating the contribution of executive functions to children's academic outcomes, and the contributions of maternal psychopathology to children’s cortical responses. Chika holds an MPhil and a PhD from the University of Cambridge, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Applied Psychology from Adekunle Ajasin University. 

    At the SEED Lab, Chika has worked on the Afinidata intervention project in Brazil, contributing to the analysis of the qualitative data.

  • Dr Juhayna Taha —

    Dr Juhayna Taha is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Language and Literacy in the Department of Psychology and Human Development, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Language, Literacy and Numeracy: Research and Practice.  She has cross-disciplinary training in Speech and Language Therapy (Birzeit University, Palestine), Psycholinguistics (The University of Edinburgh, Scotland), Clinical Language Sciences (University of Reading, England), and Developmental Psychology (University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy). Juhayna is the co-director of the Language Development Across Contexts research lab. Her research spans multiple languages and explores the underlying mechanisms of language and reading development in typically developing children and those with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and dyslexia. Her interests also include evaluating the quality of oral language provision in early years classrooms, especially in the Arab region, and examining its relationship with children’s language and literacy outcomes. Juhayna teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at UCL, co-leading modules on language development, developmental psychology, and specific learning difficulties (dyslexia). Her teaching draws on her clinical experience as a speech and language therapist and her research expertise to support students in understanding how language and literacy develop, how difficulties are identified, and how evidence-based practices can support children’s learning. In addition to her academic work, Juhayna is actively engaged in consultancy. She is currently involved in a UK Department for Education (DfE) project to support children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) in mainstream schools. Juhayna is passionate about science communication and public engagement. She regularly shares her research with parents, educators, and SLTs through talks, webinars, and workshops. She co-founded the Arabic DLD Platform (www.dldisorderar.com) to raise awareness and provide resources on DLD in the Arab world.

  • Dr Mojtaba Soltanlou —

    Dr Soltanlou studied Occupational Therapy for his undergraduate and master’s degrees in Iran and worked with children with developmental and learning disorders from 2005 to 2012. Dr Soltanlou moved to Germany and completed his PhD in Neuroscience in 2017 at the University of Tübingen under the supervision of Prof. Hans-Christoph Nürk. He then completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the same lab, followed by a second postdoc in Prof. Daniel Ansari’s lab at Western University in Canada. Dr Soltanlou joined the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey as an Assistant Professor in 2021 and moved to UCL in 2024. He is the Director of the Learning Brain Lab (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/departments/psychology-and-human-development/research/learning-brain-lab).

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