Bilingual Experience and Auditory Health Literacy: Online Comprehension of Spoken Medical Instructions

Teneesha Young
Mentors: Courtney Stathis, Laura Spinu

Auditory health literacy (the ability to understand and act on spoken medical information) is critical for healthcare decision-making, particularly in telehealth and automated contexts. This study examines whether bilingual language experience is associated with improved auditory health literacy, focusing on comprehension and numeracy for spoken medical instructions. Participants complete an online task via Pavlovia in which they listen to instructions for medication dosages, schedules, and conditional constraints, then answer comprehension questions and numeracy judgments. Language experience is assessed using questionnaires capturing age of acquisition, proficiency, and daily language use. Data collection is in progress, with a target sample of approximately 60 adult participants. The project extends acoustically grounded research on bilingualism to applied health contexts and highlights the potential role of bilingual experience in supporting everyday medical communication.

Development of a Genetically Engineered Escherichia coli Lemo21 with PETase

Jaren Tasnim
Mentor: Sarwar Jahangir

At present polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a widely used plastic — a strong, lightweight, semi-crystalline thermoplastic with excellent resistance to moisture and chemicals, high stiffness, and a density of ~1.38 g/cm³. Its high chemical stability contributes to long-term environmental persistence and accumulation as microplastics and nanoplastics. This study aims to develop a genetically engineered strain of Escherichia coli overexpressing PETase for the biodegradation of PET plastics. We selected E. coli Lemo21(DE3) for its tight regulation and high-level expression of recombinant protein under induced conditions, and successfully transformed it with the plasmid pET-21b(+)-Is-PETase-W185A (from Addgene, originating from Ideonella sakaiensis). Expression of PETase was induced with L-rhamnose followed by IPTG; cells were lysed and incubated with star-shaped PET fragments at 37°C for seven days alongside controls. PET fragments were then examined by light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy to assess the impact of the PETase extract. The results showed significant degradation: treated PET fragments appeared cloudy with pronounced surface erosion and structural disruption compared to controls, demonstrating that PETase from the engineered E. coli Lemo21(DE3) is active in degrading PET. The experiment is being repeated to determine the L-rhamnose concentration needed for optimal PETase expression and the effect of extended incubation time on degradation.

Bilingualism and Cognitive Resilience: Online Episodic Memory for Auditory Verbal Material

Maureen Sam-Okomgboeso
Mentors: Jennifer Edwards-Saul, Laura Muscalu

Cognitive reserve refers to the ability to maintain cognitive functioning despite aging or neuropathology. Episodic memory is thought to better represent the neural basis of cognitive reserve than other cognitive abilities or static proxies such as education. The present study examines whether bilingual language experience is associated with enhanced episodic memory for auditorily presented verbal material, using an online paradigm modeled on established clinical memory measures. Participants complete an episodic memory task via Pavlovia involving auditory encoding of word lists, followed by immediate and delayed recall. This task demands auditory perception, phonological encoding, and memory consolidation, closely paralleling verbal episodic memory measures commonly used in cognitive reserve research. Language experience is assessed using background questionnaires capturing age of acquisition, daily language use, and proficiency tests. The experiment is underway, with a target sample of about 60 adult participants. We predict that bilingual participants will demonstrate higher recall accuracy and reduced forgetting over delay compared to monolinguals, and that greater balance and intensity of bilingual language use will be associated with stronger episodic memory performance. By adopting an episodic memory structure shown to predict cognitive reserve and implementing it with auditory verbal stimuli, this student-led project contributes to acoustically grounded approaches to bilingual cognition using scalable online methods.

Prompting Across Languages: Are Bilingual Speakers More Effective AI Prompt Engineers?

Denisse Ramos
Mentor: Laura Spinu

This study examines whether bilingualism influences prompt construction in human–AI interaction. Bilingual speakers, who routinely manage multiple linguistic systems, may exhibit enhanced metalinguistic awareness and strategic language use. Participants (N ≈ 20–40), categorized as monolingual or bilingual, complete goal-oriented tasks (e.g., explanation, transformation, constrained writing) by generating prompts for AI systems and submitting both prompts and outputs. Prompts are analyzed for length, structural complexity, explicitness, and constraint use, while outputs are evaluated for clarity and task success. We expect bilingual participants to produce more structured and explicit prompts, reflecting greater control over linguistic formulation, with their outputs showing higher alignment with task goals. These findings position prompt engineering as a novel domain of applied metalinguistic competence, extending research on bilingual cognitive advantages into human–AI interaction and contributing to discussions of how linguistic experience shapes communication strategies beyond human interlocutors.

Babble Noise and Artificial Accent Learning in Monolingual and Bilingual Young Adults

Mariana Vasilita
Mentors: Meital Avivi-Reich, Laura Spinu

The current study examined whether the bilingual advantage in accent learning persists under noisy listening conditions. Monolingual English speakers (n = 13) and early bilingual speakers (n = 13) completed an artificial accent-learning task presented in 12-talker babble noise (+10 dB SNR) and a digit span task measuring working memory. Both groups showed significant learning across phases, demonstrating successful acquisition of the novel accent, though performance declined as sentence complexity increased. Contrary to previous findings from quiet listening conditions, no overall bilingual advantage was observed; instead, group differences varied by feature type, with monolingual speakers outperforming bilingual speakers on an intonation feature. Working memory was positively related to accent learning only among bilingual participants. These findings suggest that background noise may reduce or eliminate the bilingual advantage previously reported in accent learning, highlighting the importance of studying speech learning under ecologically valid listening conditions.

Understanding Individual Variation in Multilingual Populations Among Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Students

Anastasiia Myslyk
Mentor: Irina Vaynshteyn

Understanding and addressing individual and linguistic variations is essential for providing effective speech-language pathology services (Conway-Klaassen & Maness, 2017). Limited knowledge of individual variation in multilingual populations may contribute to the development of stereotypes that negatively affect service delivery (Taylor, 2014). Therefore, speech-language pathologists and graduate students must be prepared to work with diverse populations and develop a broader understanding of individual differences across linguistic and cultural groups (Conway-Klaassen & Maness, 2017; Daughrity, 2021). Despite the growing linguistic diversity of clinical populations, limited research has examined whether knowledge of individual variation in multilingual populations is being effectively integrated into graduate speech-language pathology education and clinical training. The present study investigated whether knowledge of individual variation in multilingual populations is utilized during clinical practicum experiences by speech-language pathology graduate students at Touro University. Specifically, the study examined (1) whether graduate students apply knowledge of individual variation in multilingual populations during clinical practica, (2) whether first-year graduate students demonstrate the same level of awareness as second-year graduate students, and (3) whether graduate students perceive themselves as adequately prepared to work with diverse populations and understand individual differences across populations. Findings may provide insight into the effectiveness of graduate training programs in preparing future clinicians to deliver culturally responsive services to multilingual populations.

Urwa Malik

Public Speaking · SPE 2100-24 · KCC Valedictorian (2026)

Brooke Harriston

Public Speaking · SPE 2100-23

Viktoriia Dutchak

Public Speaking · SPE 2100-19

Katherine Lwn

Public Speaking · SPE 2100-20