Skip to main content

Bilingualism and the Brain in Education and Language (BABEL) Lab

Explore the BABEL Lab website!

Faculty Director: Genesis Arizmendi, PhD, CCC-SLP

Key Personnel: Lab Research Assistants

Location: SLHS Room 310

Research Focus: The BABEL Lab studies how language, cognition, and life experiences shape how people learn, communicate, and access support across their lives. The lab’s work reflects the understanding that language profoundly shapes health and opportunity. Dr. Arizmendi and her team collaborate with Spanish–English bilingual communities to understand how growing up with more than one language influences school success, social experiences, and interactions with educational and healthcare systems. The lab also examines how policies, everyday practices, and broader systems create barriers or open doors for systemically underserved communities. Through partnerships with local communities and schools, the BABEL Lab designs and tests solutions that improve access, strengthen representation, and expand pathways for all communities to thrive.

Student Roles: Our research team is interdisciplinary and composed of highly motivated and committed undergraduate and graduate students across the university.  As BABEL Lab Research Assistants, students are involved in research at a variety of levels, including:

  • Assistance with data recruitment and data collection
  • Processing and analyzing language samples on bilingual communication in young children and adults
  • Developing and implementing lesson plans by developing presentations and activities for a high school curriculum based on SLHS and for VAMOSS (our department Spanish language club)
  • Examining teacher and parent surveys on their school/health experiences with their bilingually developing child
  • Gaining skills in research to public science communication on topics related to bilingual learning and development

Student Representative: Melissa Romero melissar2@arizona.edu 

Currently accepting students? Waitlist, request application for next semester

Prerequisites: None

Preferred Qualifications: Spanish-English bilingual language skills (not required)

Image of two woman standing in front of their research poster smiling at the camera.
Image of 11 undergraduate students standing in a group on some stairs smiling at the camera.
Image of person standing in front of a group listening to a presentation.
Image of students sitting around a table.
Image of four people holding a t shirt up standing in front of a whiteboard smiling at the camera.

 

Image of four people standing outside behind a table on a sunny day.

 

Image of six young people standing in front of a slide presentation smiling at the camera.
BABEL Lab logo