Starting this year, Sandra Oliveira has taken on a position as Assistant Professor in Genetic and Linguistic Evolution at the University of Zurich. Her expertise brings a new light to the research of the NCCR Evolving Language.
News
During the Fall Semester 2025, seniors from Uni3 (University of Geneva) had the unique opportunity to visit the Human Neuroscience Platform at Campus Biotech, on three separate occasions.
NCCR researchers led a successful workshop on Experimental Psycholinguistic Methods for Underdescribed Languages. The workshop was held in collaboration with the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) and the CHANA Scientific Research Station, for young researchers from interdisciplinary fields in Lima and Pucallpa (Peru).
A new study from researchers at the University of Neuchâtel, published in The Royal Society Open Science, compared the preference for prosocial behaviour, e.g. cooperation, in humans and chimpanzees. Their results uncover surprising similarities that add to our knowledge on the origins of the extraordinary human collaborative and communicative abilities.
On October 28th, the exhibition “The Mind-Body Problem” opened its doors to the public. It is the fruit of a collaboration between the NCCR Evolving Language and artist Robin Meier Wiratunga. This work stems from the intriguing discovery that birds dream in songs, which they will then sing in the following days. Through algorithms, the artist recreates these fragments of acoustic dreams and makes them audible.
On October 1st, 2025, Dr. Jane Goodall passed. Her contributions throughout her long life transformed the field of primatology and reshaped the way we understand humans within the animal kingdom. Here, the members of the NCCR Evolving Language reflect on the impact Dr. Goodall has had, and continues to have, on their work and lives.
Many of our researchers attended the 58th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) from 26-29th of August 2025 hosted at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne in Bordeaux, France, and contributed through workshops, talks and poster sessions.
Nina Kazanina, Valentina Borghesani, and Giulia Li Calzi represented the NCCR Evolving Language at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL) 2025 conference. This was a great introduction to the next edition, which will be held in Geneva from September 30 to October 2, 2026.
Lucie Attout joined the Faculté de Psychologie et Sciences de l’Education (FPSE) of the University of Geneva as an assistant professor in Psycholinguistics and Speech-Therapy and the NCCR Evolving Language. “For a long time, I’ve been fascinated by the human capacity for learning,” she says. Her research focuses on the importance of short- and long-term memory processes in learning, and the underlying mechanisms.
Working in partnership with the New Guinea Binatang Research Centre (NGBRC), Pr. John Mansfield, Roger Maikei, and Sara Schindler recently completed a field expedition to document and study the endangered Mum \[kqa] language in the Josephstaal region, Papua New Guinea.