PhD Students

Katherine Bryan is a first-year doctoral student in the Hearing and Speech Sciences Graduate Program at Vanderbilt University. She graduated from Bowdoin College with majors in Biology and Education. Katherine then completed her Master’s in Speech Language Pathology at Vanderbilt University, where she worked with Dr. Stephen Camarata studying efficacy of language interventions for non- and minimally-verbal children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Her research interests include genetic correlates of neurogenic communication disorders as well as discourse measures. In her free time, Katherine enjoys baking, reading, and exploring Tennessee on her bike.

Anna Kasdan is a doctoral student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Vanderbilt University and a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. Previously, she was a research assistant in the lab of Dr. David Poeppel at NYU, where she conducted research in music perception, music aesthetics, and auditory working memory. She was also heavily involved with an experimental neuroscience curriculum, “Brainwaves”, where she mentored students in the NYC Public Schools as they conducted their own EEG experiments. Anna graduated from Boston University with a major in Neuroscience and minor in Piano Performance. Committed to STEM outreach and education, Anna is looking forward to bringing her experiences from Boston and NYC to Nashville. She is interested in researching the brain basis of music processing abilities in clinical populations, such as individuals with SLI, autism, and aphasia. In addition to her neuroscience and piano studies, Anna enjoys hiking, biking, and cheering on her hometown baseball team, the Boston Red Sox.

Keysha is originally from Toa Alta, Puerto Rico, a small Island in the Caribbean where she completed her BA in Elementary Education and MS and Speech and Language Pathology. Life brought her to Nashville, where she is currently a Bilingual Speech Pathologist at the Bill Wilkerson Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a PhD student at Vanderbilt University. Her clinical work focuses on early intervention services, providing support to families of the Latinx community who have children with developmental disabilities (i.e. ASD, Language and Speech Disorders, Down Syndrome). Her research work focuses on understanding the prevalence of disabilities in early childhood, availability of resources, and aims to expand the literature on best practices for the Spanish speaking communities in the US and its territories (i.e. Puerto Rico). In her free time, she like to eat out, be with her dog, and watch TV. 

Tanguy du Mérac is an incoming second-year doctoral student in the Human Genetics Graduate Program at Vanderbilt University, currently interested in unravelling the neural and genetic basis of human musicality traits under the supervision of Dr. Reyna Gordon. During his MSc in Biomedical Sciences (University of Amsterdam), he dedicated his research to the genetic underpinnings of reading ability in Dr. Beate St. Pourcain’s research group (MPI for Psycholinguistics), as well as the genetic aetiology of inherited neurodegenerative disorders (i3S, Portugal). He holds a BSc in Microbiology and a BA in Philosophy, both awarded by the Catholic University of Portugal, and is eager to bring his contributions to both fields. Outside of work, Tanguy really enjoys playing piano, baking, writing poems, and reading books.