Meet Adrián García-Sierra, Ph.D.! Dr. García-Sierra is an Associate Professor in the department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS), as well as the Associate Department Head of the SLHS Undergraduate Program. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Speech Perception & Language Development Lab.

Dr. García-Sierra began his career as an undergraduate student in México, studying psychology at La Universidad de las Américas-Puebla. He then went on to earn his master’s degree in neurobiology at the Institute on Neurobiology in Querétaro, Méxioco, and his Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Texas-Austin. He also completed a post-doctoral position at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences at the University of Washington before he was hired as an Assistant Professor here at UConn.

His main research focus is speech perception. More specifically, he is interested in learning how bilinguals process speech sounds in unknown scenarios. His lab is currently working on a project that investigates grammatical processing in heritage bilinguals by looking at brain responses using electroencephalograms!

When asked what the best part of his job is, Dr. García-Sierra said that he enjoys creating ideas, crystallizing abstract ideas into something concrete, as well as engaging with colleagues and students.

A fun fact about Dr. García-Sierra is that he was involved in many theater productions when he was an undergraduate student in México! He competed in international competitions, and one of his biggest roles even made him locally famous!