Alexus Ramirez

Alexus Ramirez (she/her/hers) is a postdoctoral research fellow under Dr. Rachel Romeo’s mentorship at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD), in the Language, Experience, and Development (LEAD) Lab, funded by an NICHD NIH Diversity Supplement Award. She received her bachelor’s in psychology at the University of California, Merced, and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Delaware (UD). Broadly, Alexus is interested in researching how variation in children’s early language experiences relates to developmental outcomes. During her doctoral work at UD, she examined parents’ beliefs about using infant-directed speech, grandparent-grandchild interactions over video chat, and how discussing specific topics, such as math, animals, or colors, during toddlerhood relate to children’s school readiness with Dr. Roberta Golinkoff (Child’s Play Lab). At UMD, Alexus will investigate how children’s home environments and parents’ beliefs about language learning relate to how parents talk with children, and in turn, children’s development of language, executive function, and social cognition in monolingual and bilingual families.