Dr. Isabelle Barrière is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Molloy College. She completed her PhD in Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck College at the University of London. She subsequently received training in Education, in Neuropsychology at Toulouse University and at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, and in Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University. Her research on the acquisition of different languages by monolinguals and bilinguals focuses on early morphosyntactic development and the impact of cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal factors and on the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment of literacy and mathematical skills in preschool and school children.  Her projects have focused on monolingual and bilingual children acquiring African American English, British Sign Language, English, French, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Kyrgyz, Russian, (Dominican and Mexican) Spanish, Yiddish. This work has been supported by numerous grant-giving organizations, both European, such as the UK Economic and Social Research Council, and American, such as the New York State Department of Education and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Barrière is also the Director of Policy for Research and Education at YVY Early Childhood Center, one of the largest Head Start programs in New York City. Since 2017, she initiated the first NSF-Research Experience for Undergraduate Site focused on the linguistic diversity of New York City that encourages and supports research by and on members of minorities under-represented in Higher Education.  In 2018 her contribution to our understanding of the language development of young children in Haiti and in New York was recognized by thirteen NYC, NYS and US elected officials and in January 2019 she was made Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Government for her contribution to scholarship and education.