Keynotes

Nancy C. Kula

Nancy C. Kula is Professor of African Linguistics and Phonology at Leiden University and a leading scholar of Bantu linguistics and phonology. Her research combines theoretical and descriptive approaches to the study of African languages, with particular expertise in phonological theory, tone and prosodic systems, phonology–morphology and phonology–syntax interfaces, and the structure and variation of Bantu languages. She is one of the four editors of The Oxford Guide to the Bantu Languages (Oxford University Press, 2025).

Her research is strongly collaborative and interdisciplinary, connecting expertise in linguistics with broader questions of multilingualism, language policy, education, and conflict in Africa. She is a co-investigator in the ESRC-funded project "Multilingualism, Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities of Linguistic Practice and Policy" hosted by the University of Essex, which brings together researchers in linguistics and political science, as well as researchers and practitioners in the UK and Africa, to investigate how multilingualism can create shared or “bridging” ties and contribute to conflict resolution. Her wider collaborations span Bantu linguistics, phonology, multilingualism and linguistic ethnography, including research with scholars working across Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, Botswana and the UK. Results of her work have been published in leading international journals in linguistics, including Phonology,The Linguistic Review, Lingua, Transactions of the Philological Society, Linguistic Analysis, and the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics.

Anne Beatty-Martínez

Anne Beatty-Martínez is Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego, and a scholar of bilingualism, psycholinguistics and cognitive science. Her research examines how language experience shapes language processing and cognition, with particular focus on bilingual language processing, codeswitching, cross-linguistic interaction, and the ways in which interactional context influences language and cognitive control. Her work combines behavioral and cognitive-neuroscience methods, including eye-tracking, pupillometry, and EEG, with approaches that place bilingual language use in its broader social and interactional context.

Her collaborative research connects the Bilingualism in Context Lab at UC San Diego with international research networks in bilingualism and codeswitching, including the University of Amsterdam’s Crossing Language Borders group and the Center for Language Science at Penn State. These collaborations bring together complementary expertise in bilingual language processing, codeswitching, cognitive control and multilingualism, and extend her research across diverse linguistic and cultural contexts. She has published in leading international journals including Cognition, Journal of Memory and Language, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Brain and Language, Scientific Reports, and Psychophysiology.

María del Pilar García Mayo

María del Pilar García Mayo is Full Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of the Basque Country (EHU), where she led the Language and Speech (LASLAB) research group since 2007 to 2026. She is also an Honorary Professor at University College London (UK) and an Honorary Consultant for the Shanghai Center for Research in English Language Education (SCRELE). Her research focuses on second and third language acquisition, multilingualism, and instructed language learning, with particular emphasis on how interaction and feedback support language development in classroom settings. She has published extensively on child and adult language learning and has coordinated numerous national and international research projects. Her work has made significant contributions to our understanding of multilingual language acquisition and the processes that underpin successful language learning. She is also Editor-in-Chief of Language Teaching Research and the director of the MA program in Language Acquisition in Multilingual Seetings. She has been recently elected a member of the Academia Europaea.