Join us before the 8 PM performance of Paradise on Friday, April 14, 2017, to discuss the lasting effects of a successful teacher-student relationship with local educators and students who have benefited from their work.

Dr. Catherine Caldwell-Harris, Associate Professor, brings her cognitive science training to a range of interdisciplinary questions, including cross-cultural psychology, bilingualism, foreign language learning and immigration.  She has written extensively on how the emotional resonances elicited by language differ for bilinguals’ native and foreign language, beginning with her seminal study demonstrating that skin conductance amplitudes were larger when bilingual speakers listened to emotional phrases in their native language compared to a foreign language.  Her diverse investigations into the emotions associated with language include lying,  joking and evaluating trolley (and other) dilemmas. Dr. Caldwell-Harris’ cross-cultural work  Her study of Russian immigrants to US documented how young children “Englishify” the household, while older immigrants’ friendships maintain their native language. With computer-modeling colleagues, she is constructing a dynamic-systems model of the factors that influence the range of language-learning outcomes for immigrants to the U.S.

And her mentee: Zoe Chen is a senior at BU majoring in psychology and minoring in statistics. She does volunteer tutoring for children and adolescents and from interacting with them, she has developed a strong interest in developmental and cross-cultural psychology. She hopes to go to clinical programs after graduating, and continue work with the younger generation. In her free time, she enjoys reading, watching crime shows, and traveling with friends and family.

Francie Latour coordinates diversity programs at the Broad Institute, a leading center for genomics and biomedical research in Cambridge that is affiliated with MIT, Harvard and Boston’s area teaching hospitals. Francie is primarily responsible for managing the Broad Summer Research Program, a competitive, NIH-funded program that matches college students from around the country with scientific mentors to conduct original research projects. The uniquely designed program also wraps students in a supportive environment that recognizes the institutional and cultural forces that have excluded people of color from STEM. In her work, Francie works one-on-one with students and helps design and facilitate workshops around growth mindset, cross-cultural mentoring and scientific communication.