The human brain is a biological machine that’s constantly interacting with the world of culture. In some ways, all brains are the same, but at the same time, each is different, shaped by unique and sometimes radically different experiences. On one level, the brain is a huge network of interconnected, distributed functions. But at the same time, some functions seem to be quite strictly localized. How do these two things fit together? How do they interact? And how does the functional specialization emerge in the first place?

I try to explore these questions by working with people who have very different sensory, cultural, and linguistic experiences: for example, people born deaf who grew up with sign language from birth, and those born deaf into hearing families who didn’t have full access to language early in life.

I’m currently an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw.