I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland, College Park, in the Language, Experience, and Development (LEAD) Lab.
My research program examines the environmental factors that shape children’s early language experiences and school readiness. I focus on the cognitive development of young children, with particular attention to language, executive functioning, and social cognition. Using an asset-based approach, I identify culturally sustaining strategies that leverage children’s unique strengths to promote equitable early learning opportunities for linguistically and socioeconomically diverse children. I employ multiple behavioral and observational methods, including questionnaires, interviews, direct assessments of school readiness skills, in-lab play interactions, and language sampling from daylong naturalistic recordings.
Through an NIH NICHD K99/R00 award, I am investigating the longitudinal relationships between children’s code-switching exposure, language abilities, and executive functioning, mentored by Dr. Rachel Romeo and Dr. Casey Lew-Williams.
I completed my Ph.D. in Education at the University of Delaware in 2023, where I worked with Dr. Roberta Michnick Golinkoff at the Child’s Play, Learning, and Development Lab. I received my B.A. in Psychology at the University of California, Merced.
If you would like to get in touch, please email me at:
alexusgr@umd.edu
ALEXUS G. RAMIREZ 