Projects
Individual variation in grammatical coherence: an empirical study of spoken Netherlandic Dutch Ghent University
This project focuses on the issue of linguistic coherence, i.e. the question how much systematicity can be found in everyday linguistic heterogeneity. This is actually an old issue, however still causing much controversy today. The point of departure is that to address the issue thoroughly, the level of the individual has to be the prime focus of concern, contrary to the common practice of immediately aggregating over multiple speakers. The ...
Life in temporary waters: phenotypic variation in Nothobranchius furzeri and its effects on species interactions KU Leuven
'It's like y'know my mother tongue'. The impact of L1 and individual variation on the use of pragmatic markers by learners of English in peer-to-peer interaction KU Leuven
Coping with geographic mosaics of stressors: unravelling the interplay of genetic and non-genetic trait variation in natural landscapes KU Leuven
Sociolinguistic variation in Ancient Greek dialects: mapping the contact between Doric and Koine Greek Ghent University
Ancient Greek dialects exhibit a great deal of geographic, diachronic, and sociolinguistic variation in their usage, both as spoken and as literary varieties. The Hellenistic age (4th – 1st cc. BC) was a crucial period for language contact and the rise of linguistic awareness, on account of the spread of a new variety used as lingua franca, the Koine. Previous studies have focussed on the diachronic spread of Koine and the gradual ...
Interpretation of genomic regulatory variation in the human brain and Parkinson’s Disease by integrating deep learning with single-cell multi-omics KU Leuven
The combination of whole-genome sequencing with matching single-cell multi-omics data provides unprecedented opportunities to unravel the impact of genomic variation on gene expression and cell state. In this project, we will use deep learning models and enhancer-based gene regulatory network inference to model enhancers and link them to target genes, applied to human substantia nigra (SN) and cingulate gyrus (CG) brain regions. Next, we will ...
Dissecting the regulatory mechanisms of gene regulatory landscapes to predict the impact of non-coding variation. KU Leuven
Enhancers are short non-coding DNA sequences that control the expression of genes in a time, tissue and dosage-specific manner. Non-coding variations in these elements have been previously associated with normal and pathological human phenotypes. In this research project, we propose to further characterize their contribution to craniofacial development and related disorders. While craniofacial malformations are among the most common ...