Trisha Thomas

Her research at the university primarily focuses on how children interact with artificial conversational agents to promote learning outcomes, how automatic speech recognition systems process acoustic variation in the speech of multilingual children, and examining neural responses in children during conversations with AI versus human partners.

Trisha’s research aims to expand our understanding of human communication, cognition, and technology's role in shaping the way we interact, process, and learn.  She is especially interested in the nuanced ways human and AI interaction influence cognitive processes and the role of bilingualism in child-AI interactions. 

Prior to her role at Marsal Family School of Education, she completed her doctoral degree in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language (BCBL) in Donostia-San Sebastián, Basque Country, where her research focused on how interlocutor identity affects cognitive mechanisms, attention, and memory. During this time she primarily used electroencephalographic data to elucidate processing mechanisms in non-native speech processing.