Ianthi Maria Tsimpli is Professor of Psycholinguistics: Language Acquisition and Language Disorders at the Dept. of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics of the School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She is also Director of the Language Development Research Lab at the School of English. She holds a BA in Modern Greek Literature and Byzantine Studies from the University of Athens, a Diploma in Linguistics and a PhD in Linguistics from University College London (1992). Her doctorate thesis was published in 1996 in the series Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics, Garland with the title Functional Categories and Maturation: The Prefunctional Stage of Language Acquisition. She taught Linguistics at University College London, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and University of Cambridge, UK. She teaches and researches in First and Second Language Acquisition, Psycholinguistics, and Theoretical Syntax. She has extensively worked on the case of Christopher, a polyglot-savant, with Neil Smith with whom she co-authored the book The Mind of a Savant: Language Learning and Modularity (1995, Blackwell) as well as a number of published articles (Lingua, Journal of Neurolinguistics, Journal of Linguistics, Journal of Individual and Learning Differences). A number of articles co-authored with Gary Morgan, Neil Smith and Bencie Woll and the recent book "Signs of a Savant" (CUP) have also been published on a subsequent research project investigating Christopher’s ability to learn British Sign Language. She has also published many articles on L1 and L2 acquisition, SLI and Syntax in international journals and books (Linguistic Review, Brain and Language, Journal of Greek Linguistics, International Journal of Bilingualism, Lingua, Second Language Research). The Language Development Lab which she directs is conducting research on first and second language development, SLI, Broca’s aphasia, native adult, child and L2 sentence processing and eye-movements. A large part of this research is externally funded by research projects. Some of the findings of recent and current research from this lab, co-authored with Despina Papadopoulou, have already been presented and published in conference proceedings (BUCLD, GALA, ISTAL, ICGL) as well as in journals and book volumes.
