Usha Goswami

Career and research

Goswami was a research fellow at Merton College, Oxford for the 1986–87 and 1988–89 academic years. She was at the University of Illinois from 1987 to 1988 having received a Harkness Fellowship. She was a lecturer in experimental psychology at the University of Cambridge from 1990 to 1997. Then, from 1997 to 2002, she was Professor of Cognitive Developmental Psychology at the Institute of Child Health, University College London. In January 2003, she moved to the University of Cambridge where she currently works as the director for the Centre for Neuroscience in Education and Professor of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience.

Goswami is currently the Director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at the University of Cambridge. The Centre utilizes electroencephalogram (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to study the developing brain. Some of her current research projects include the neural basis of developmental dyslexia, the neural basis of speech and language impairments, and the neural basis of rhythmic motor behavior.

Dyslexia is a multifaceted disorder of learning primarily manifested by difficulties in reading, spelling, and phonological processing. In people with dyslexia, the brain processes certain signals in a specific way making it a very specific learning difficulty. Dr. Goswami's research is concerned with focusing on dyslexia as a language disorder rather than a visual disorder as she has found that the way that children with dyslexia hear language is slightly different than others. When sound waves approach the brain, they vary in pressure depending on the syllables within the words being spoken creating a rhythm. When these signals reach the brain they are lined up with brain rhythms and this process doesn't work properly in those with dyslexia. Goswami is currently researching whether or not reading poetry, nursery rhymes, and singing can be used to help children with dyslexia. The rhythm of the words could allow the child to match the syllable patterns to language before they begin reading as to catch them up to where children without the disability might be.

Honours and awards

Usha Goswami has received numerous awards and has served on several different committees over the years. Early in her career she was awarded the British Psychology Society Spearman Medal (for early career research excellence), the Norman Geschwind-Rodin Prize (a Swedish award for research excellence in the field of dyslexia), and received research fellowships from the National Academy of Education (USA), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), and the Leverhulme Trust. She has served on the National Curriculum and the National Literacy Project, the Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing in 2008, and the Managing Committee of the European Concerted Action on Learning Disorders as a Barrier to Human Development. In 2013 she was 1 of 42 UK-based scholars that year to be selected to become a Fellow of the British Academy awarded to those with academic distinction in their research. Goswami has also been a member of several research boards including the ESRC Research Grants Board (1998-2000), the Neurosciences and Mental Health Board of the Medical Research Council (1999-2003), and the Cross Board Group of the Medical Research Council (2001-2003).Usha Goswami was awarded the Yidan Prize for Education Research in September 2019 for her ground-breaking neuroscience research in understanding brain function, which allows educators to design different teaching pedagogy, techniques and tools to help children with dyslexia and special needs to learn languages more effectively.

Goswami was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to educational research. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 2021.