Keynote Speakers

Judith Kroll
School of Education, University of California, Irvine

"Being and Becoming Bilingual: New Insights About the Mind and the Brain Reveal the Openness of Language Learning"

Judith F. Kroll is Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine and former director of the Center for Language Science at Pennsylvania State University. Her research uses the tools of cognitive neuroscience to examine the way that bilinguals juggle the presence of two languages in one mind and brain. Her work, with support from NSF and NIH, has shown that bilingualism provides a tool for revealing the interplay between language and cognition that is otherwise obscure in speakers of one language alone.

She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Association and a founding editor of Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge University Press), and a founding organizer of Women in Cognitive Science and chairs an international research network on language learning and bilingualism.

Eleonora Suleimenova
Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan

"The Current Language Situation in Kazakhstan: From Language Shift to Russian to Language Diversification"

Professor Eleonora Dusenovna Suleimenova (Doctor of Philology-MGU, Professor on the Faculty of Philology, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University) specializes in general linguistics (semantics, nomination theory, language ability, linguistic methodology), sociolinguistics (language situation and language policy, functioning of the Kazakh and Russian languages in Kazakhstan), theoretical and applied lexicography, contrastive linguistics. In addition to her teaching and advising responsibilities, Dr. Suleimenova also serves as head of the Sociolinguistic Laboratory in the Department of Theory and Practice of Translation and as Academic Director (Kazakhstan) of the Russian Overseas Flagship Program.

She is a member of the Scientific Expert Council of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, the International Committee of Slavists (since 2003), the Presidium of MAPRYAL (since 1999) and the Academic Council of INTAS (2003-2006). She is founding president of the Kazakhstan Public Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (1998-2003) and serves on numerous international editorial boards including Russian Language Journal.