I was awarded my BBSc(Hons) in 1999 and my PhD (Psycholinguistics) in 2004, both from La Trobe University. Over my career I have worked at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The University of Manchester, and La Trobe University. I began working at the Australian National University in 2012, originally working in the Research School of Psychology. In 2022 I moved over to School of Literature, Languages, and Linguistics to take up a position as Professor of Linguistics.

My research is in psycholinguistics. I work both on language acquisition (including first language acquisition, bilingualism, & second language acquisition) and adult language processing. My recent research has focused on individual differences in language acquisition and use, the relationship between language acquisition and on-line sentence processing in crosslinguistic perspective, and the influence of typological diversity on sentence planning and production. Accordingly, my research group works on several typologically diverse languages. I also have a keen interest in how language interfaces with other social and cognitive processes.