Natalia Rivera-Vera is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Language Sciences (ILS) of the Faculty of Humanities. Her research interests focus on how and from whom we learn a new language. She is currently working on the project "Getting to the CoRe: a communicative-receptive approach to language learning and mutual understanding in multilingual academic contexts". She is investigating 1) what cognitive processes underlie a receptive approach to language learning, and 2) how this affects successful communication in receptive multilingual settings.

Educational background

In 2009, Natalia received her Bachelor's degree in Hispanic Literature and Linguistics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. At the same institution, she taught academic writing to BA students and worked as a research assistant at the Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience Laboratory of the School of Psychology. In 2012, Natalia was awarded a national scholarship to study at the rMA Brain and Cognitive Sciences of the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA).

In 2018, Natalia was awarded a scholarship to begin her Ph.D. studies at the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication of the UvA. She received her Ph.D. in 2024, with a dissertation entitled "Word Learning: When Associative Learning Meets Social-Pragmatic Expectations". During her doctoral studies, Natalia investigated how adults process and integrate perceptual data and social-pragmatic information during (cross-situational) word learning.

In addition to her research, Natalia was a representative of the ACLC doctoral students and participated in the organization of local academic events for the ACLC doctoral community. She is currently working as a lecturer in the BA Cognition, Language and Communication at the UvA (2024-2025). Natalia is also involved in the international community of Chilean Ph.D. researchers who, like her, have received Chilean government scholarships to pursue graduate studies abroad.