Vrinda Kalia

Teaching Interests

I love to learn and I believe learning can be fun. My teaching philosophy emerges from the joy that learning can bring. My classrooms are safe spaces where students are encouraged to engage with the material and each other. As an instructor, I do not believe my role is defined by providing information to students. Instead, my role is to facilitate and scaffold the development of students’: (1) knowledge of theories, ideas, and perspectives, (2) skills in exploring, thinking, and reflecting, and (3) understanding of themselves as individuals who can make a difference in this world.

Research Interests

How do we learn to control our thoughts and emotions to achieve our goals? My research program is geared to unpack the relation between cognitive control and emotion control. I am particularly interested in the contextual forces (i.e. family, culture, language environment, stress) that shape the development of emotion regulation and executive processes. In the last few years I have studied bilingual populations in India and the US. Some of my recent work has examined differences in executive functions in early and late bilinguals and the relation between language and the development of executive functions in monolingual and bilingual children.

Although my research interests are developmental, my research is interdisciplinary; intersecting educational psychology, cultural psychology, and cognitive psychology. My lab uses a combination of behavioral and physiological (i.e. EEG and fNIRS) techniques to address research questions.

Professional Recognition

• Elva Knight Research Award (International Literacy Association)
• Language Learning Dissertation Award
• Adjunct Excellence in Teaching Award (Durham Technical Community College)

Selected Publications

• Vrinda Kalia, Robin Thomas, *Kira Osowski and **Tony Drew (2018) Staying alert? Examining the neural correlates of the association between grit and attention networks. Frontiers in Psychology – Cognition
• Vrinda Kalia, Primula D. Lane and Makeba P. Wilbourn (2018) Cognitive control and phonological awareness in the acquisition of second language vocabulary within the Spanish-English dual immersion context. Cognitive Development, 48, 176-189.
• Vrinda Kalia, Makeba Parramore Wilbourn, and Maria Paula Daneri (2017) Relations between vocabulary and executive functions in Spanish-English dual language learners, Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1-14.
• Vrinda Kalia, Makeba Parramore Wilbourn, and Kathleen Ghio (2014) Better early or late? Age of second language acquisition and executive functions in early and late bilinguals. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 26, 699-713.
• Makeba Parramore Wilbourn, Laura E. Kurtz and Vrinda Kalia (2012) The lexical stroop sort (LSS) picture-word task: A computerized task for assessing the relationship between language and executive functioning in school-aged children, Behavior Research Methods, 44, 270-286.
• Vrinda Kalia and Elaine Reese (2009) Relations Between Indian Children’s Home Literacy Environment and Their English Oral Language and Literacy Skills, Scientific Studies of Reading, 13, 122-145.

* Miami Undergraduate Student ** Miami Graduate Student