Alex’s research focuses on the oral language skills which underlie early reading development. She is especially interested in prosody, or speech rhythm. Her dissertation research looks at how awareness of prosody may help support reading development across the early elementary school grades. She is also interested in how prosody is represented in text (for example, through punctuation marks) and whether readers are aware of and use these cues. Alex is currently a PhD student in the Language and Literacy Lab at Dalhousie University, working with Hélène Deacon. She is excited to represent Next-Generation Scholars on the project management committee.