The British Academy was founded in 1902 and is the most important British national institution in the field of the humanities and social sciences. Since then, distinguished scholars in these areas have become members of this institution: economists, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek and William Beveridge; eminent thinkers, Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin, Louis and Mary Leakey, among many others.

Today, 15 July, an official notice by the British Academy announced the election at the Annual General Meeting of 14 July of its new president for the coming four years, the historian Professor Sir David Cannadine and the appointment of sixty-six new correspondent  members, including lecturer Núria Sebastián Gallés, full professor with the Department of Information and Communication  Technologies (DTIC) UPF.

The appointment of foreign correspondent is the highest honour that the Academy gives to people living outside the United Kingdom for international prestige achieved in the humanities or social sciences. For Núria Sebastián Gallés “this recognition of my academic career fills me with satisfaction and it is a great honour to share the moment with so many distinguished member professors of this prestigious institution”.

A brilliant academic and professional career

Núria Sebastián Gallés obtained her PhD in Experimental Psychology at the University of Barcelona in 1986. After her postdoctoral training at the Max Planck Institute and the CNRS in Paris, she earned a place as tenured lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona in 1988 and university full professor in 2002.

In 2009, she moved to Pompeu Fabra University where she is full professor of basic Psychology at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC). In addition, professor Sebastián has directed the UPF’s Doctoral School since July 2013.  

She has been a guest researcher at several research centres such as the IRCS of the University of Pennsylvania, the ICN at University College London, and professor at the University of Chicago. She has been internationally recognized with an award by the James S. McDonnell Foundation ( “Bridging Mind, Brain and Behavior” programme) in 2001 and she gave the prestigious “Nijmegen Lectures” in 2005.

In 2008 and 2013 she won the ICREA Academia award and in 2012 the Narcissus Monturiol medal in recognition of her contribution to science. In 2012 she won a prestigious Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to carry out a research project on the interaction between language development and attention in early childhood.

She was a member of the advisory group of the OECD’s “Brain and Learning” initiative from 2002 to 2006. Between 2010 and 2012 she was president of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology. She has been coordinator of the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 research consortium, which investigated bilingualism and cognitive neuroscience (BRAINGLOT), consisting of six interdisciplinary research groups (linguists, psychologists, doctors, etc.) from four Spanish universities.

At Pompeu Fabra University’s Center for Brain and Cognition she directs the Speech Acquisition and Perception (SAP) research group in which she is working on the study of the language learning process focusing especially on bilingual populations. The lab research includes children and adults and the methodologies are based on behavioural, physiological and brain imaging production responses.

At the end of 2012 Núria Sebastián was appointed member of the governing body of the European Research Council as a member of the Scientific Council and in January 2014 she was elected its vice-president.

Related information:

Video Being Human, conference given by Núria Sebastián on her area of ​​expertise for the World Economic Forum, published on 21 October 2015.