Melissa Duff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Hearing & Speech Sciences
VKC Member
Overview of Interests
The work in Dr.Duff's lab has two primary themes. 1) She studies the role of human memory and learning in language use and communication with the goal of understanding the memory-language interface and its shared neural correlates and to improve the communicative lives of individuals with disorders of memory, learning and language. Methodologically, the lab combines neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and eye-tracking methods together with behavioral methods to address questions about the contribution of distinct forms of memory to various aspects of language use and processing, and the dynamic network of neural and cognitive systems that support memory and language in the everyday communicative settings and tasks.
2) Dr. Duff conducts work in the area of traumatic brain injury and the identification of biological, cognitive, and environmental factors that influence long-term outcome. To this end, she is the founder and director of the Brain Injury Registry, a repository of demographic information, and state of the art neuropsychological and neuroanatomical data from individuals with focal lesions and traumatic brain injury, which serves as a unique resource for conducting large-scale basic and translational research in the area of acquired brain injury. These research themes align tightly with the overall mission of the center and the ongoing research programs.
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