Valerie Shafer has a rich background in linguistics, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics that facilitates her investigations in how infants and children learn to use the acoustic-phonetic properties of linguistic forms to learn language and how the breakdown in processing phonetic and phonological information might lead to language delays or disorders. Professor Shafer has developed a research/teaching laboratory that houses electrophysiological equipment to carry out her research in the neurophysiology of language. She earned her Ph.D. at SUNY-Buffalo and, before coming to The Graduate Center, was a member of the faculty at Hofstra University. She is the recipient of a National Institute of Child Health and Development award for research using electrophysiological and behavioral techniques to examine the relationship between phonetic/ phonological development in infancy and later language development in children from monolingual English and bilingual English-Spanish households.

Photo: Annemarie Poyo