Rate My Professor Zed Sehyr

Zed Sehyr is an Assistant Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders in Chapman University’s Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. She earned her Ph.D. in Cognitive, Perceptual, and Brain Sciences from University College London in 2013, M.A. in Applied Linguistics from Birkbeck College, University of London in 2007, and B.A. in Human Sciences, Applied English Language and Linguistics from Kingston University London in 2005. Her research centers on the neuroplasticity of pathways dedicated to language and visual processing as a consequence of sensory-motor and linguistic experiences, placing emphasis on sign languages and their users to advance understanding of universal aspects of human language and communication. Sehyr co-created the award-winning lexical database for American Sign Language, ASL-LEX, which provides data on lexical and phonological properties for 2,723 signs. She collaborates with computer vision scientists, applying linguistic insights and machine learning algorithms to study language and neurocognition. Committed to the empowerment and inclusion of marginalized and underrepresented communities in STEM and academia, her work promotes equitable access to research and education.

Sehyr’s professional trajectory includes Lecturer at San Diego State University’s Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences and Linguistics departments (2022–2023), Research Scientist (2015–2022) and Postdoctoral Researcher (2013–2015) at San Diego State University’s Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, and Research and Teaching Assistant at University College London’s Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre (2009–2013). Awards include the Sign Language Linguistics Society Early Career Researcher Award (2016), National Science Foundation and Popular Science 15th Anniversary Vizzies People’s Choice Award for ASL-LEX (2017), and 2nd place Best Student Paper Award from the International Society for Gesture Studies (2010). As Principal Investigator, she received a National Science Foundation grant (2023–2026, $299,247) for collaborative research quantifying sign reduction in American Sign Language using human pose estimation. Key publications encompass “The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language” (Journal of Deaf Studies & Deaf Education, 2021), “Orthographic ERP priming effects between English print and American Sign Language fingerspelling fonts” (Neurobiology of Language, 2023), “Contribution of lexical quality and sign language skill to reading comprehension” (Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2022), and “Improving Sign Recognition with Phonology” (Proceedings of the EACL, 2023).