Ola Ozernov-Palchik

Ola Ozernov-Palchik is a program director and lecturer for the MBE program at HGSE. She is also a postdoctoral associate at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in John Gabrieli’s research group. Ozernov-Palchik applies neuroimaging, psychoeducational, and cognitive methods to investigating individual differences in dyslexia in emerging readers. She is interested in the interplay between children and their environment in shaping the development of reading skills. In addition to her current position at MIT, she has worked and collaborated with research teams at Boston Children’s Hospital, Tufts University, MGH Institute of Health Professionals, Boston University, The Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), University of Oregon, and Southern Methodist University (SMU). Before transitioning to cognitive neuroscience research of reading and language development, Ozernov-Palchik worked for six years in the Institute for Evidence Based Education at SMU conducting educational research evaluating reading and math curricula and developing an early literacy assessment.

She received a B.S. in psychology and an M.S. in counseling from Southern Methodist University. She received her Ph.D. in cognitive science and child development from Tufts University. She is a recent recipient of International Dyslexia Association Early Career Researcher Award for Contributions to Research. The reciprocity between research and real-world practices is an important goal of her work, and in addition to scientific publications and presentations, she has been speaking and writing to parents, teachers, and legislatures on the topics of early dyslexia identification and remediation.