Dr. Krista Byers-Heinlein is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Concordia University, where she directs the Concordia Infant Research Lab. Krista Graduated from Fredericton High School in 1999, and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and Computer Science from McGill University in 2003. From 2004-2010, she pursued graduate studies in Developmental Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and with the support of the O’Brien Foundation fellowship (2008), received her MA and PhD degrees.
Krista’s research focuses on bilingualism in infancy: how young infants hearing two languages from birth successfully acquire their languages. She has investigated questions such as how prenatal exposure to two languages affects infants’ listening preferences at birth, and how bilingual 1-year-olds learn new words. Part of her interest in bilingualism stems from her childhood growing up in New Brunswick and attending French Immersion school.
She has published widely in academic journals including as Psychological Science, Cognition, and Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. She had received provincial and federal grants to support her research, and numerous awards including most recently the Society for Research on Child Development Outstanding Dissertation Award (2011), the Desjardins Chercheur étoile (“Star Researcher”) award in 2011, and the Concordia Media Outreach Award for Research Communicator of the Year (2012).
Krista’s work garners wide public interest, and has been featured in media outlets including TIME magazine, the Globe & Mail, le Devoir, Today’s Parent, Psychology Today, and CBC’s As It Happens.