Who am I and what do I work on?
I am a director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (since November 2006), and the founding director of the Donders Institute, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (DCCN, 1999), a cognitive neuroscience research centre at the Radboud University Nijmegen. In addition, I am professor in cognitive neuroscience at the Radboud University. My research interests relate to the domain of the human language faculty and how it is instantiated in the brain. In my research I apply neuroimaging techniques such as ERP, MEG, PET and fMRI to investigate the language system and its impairments as in aphasia, dyslexia and autism.
For my scientific contributions I received the NWO-Spinoza Prize in 2005. In 2007 the University of Glasgow awarded me with an honorary doctorate in science for my contributions to the cognitive neuroscience of language. In 2012 the KNAW awarded my career contribution to cognitive neuroscience with the Academy Professorship Prize. In 2021 I received the Distinguished Career Award from the Society for the Neurobiology of Language.
I am a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), of The Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen, and of the Academia Europaea. In 2018 I was elected as international member of the National Academy of Sciences and as Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society.
What is my connection with the Healthy Brain pillar?
Language is a uniquely human skill that makes us stand out in the animal kingdom. It enables cultural transmission and accumulation of knowledge. Language is supported by the neural infrastructure of the human brain. Any derailment of the neural infrastructure for language as a result of a stroke, a brain tumour or dementia has devastating consequences for our daily life as a human being. A healthy brain is a brain capable of interaction with the world and with fellow human beings. Hence my research is of central concern to the Healthy Brain pillar.