Karen Emmorey, Director, Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, and Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, San Diego State University Emmorey's research focuses on what sign languages can reveal about the nature of human language, cognition, and the brain. She studies the processes involved in how deaf people produce and comprehend sign language and how these processes are represented in the brain. She also investigates how experience with a signed language impacts nonlinguistic visual-spatial cognition, such as face processing, memory, and imagery. Her research interests include how language modality impacts spatial language, the linguistic functions of eye gaze in sign language, and the nature of bimodal bilingualism. Her investigations of the neural correlates of language and nonlinguistic cognitive functions draw on data from neuroimaging techniques (i.e., functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography). She is the author of four books and more than 50 journal articles. Emmorey received her Ph.D. degree in linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles.