Dr. Kerstin Meints completed her PhD at Hamburg University within its Cognitive Science Doctoral programme in 1996. She collaborated with Professors Kim Plunkett and Paul L. Harris in Oxford’s department of Experimental Psychology on a Leverhulme grant proposal from which her post-doctoral position arose. Within the project, she carried out a range of experiments on early word learning and categorisation in the Oxford Babylab. She was a member of Wolfson College, Oxford. Dr. Meints joined the University of Lincoln in 1999, opened the Lincoln Babylab the year after and has since established the lab as one of the world’s most advanced infant research labs. New software has been developed in the Lincoln Lab to facilitate Intermodal Preferential Looking, Listening, Habituation and Eye-tracking studies and to enable the combination of these studies in one user interface. The Lincoln Infant Lab programme package (2008) enables precise, fast and easy data collection and processing and more convenient data management. Next to this, an online vocabulary database has been set up and the first UK-CDI vocabulary database will be hosted from 2015 on the Lincoln webpages. Next to ongoing and externally-funded research in young children’s language learning and categorisation skills, Dr. Meints also researches colour and face perception, the development of trust and also works on comparative research. She also works on applied research in human-animal interaction, especially on animal-assisted interventions and dog bite prevention. She has recently been awarded a prestigious NIH research project on teaching children dog signalling and is part of the international project on dog bite prevention “The Blue Dog”. She has been responsible for helping to create the final version of the Blue Dog DVD and booklet and also for the first assessment of the Blue Dog programme. Dr. Meints is a Professor in Psychology.

Department Responsibilities

Research: Director of Lincoln Infant and Child Development Lab Head of Research group: Development and Behaviour Head of Lincoln Education Assistance with Dogs (LEAD@Lincoln) Autism Research and Innovation Centre (ARIC) member Centre for Innovation in Fatherhood and Family Research member Teaching, supervision and research with undergraduate, Masters and PhD students. Module coordinator for 1. Research methods in Developmental Psychology (Developmental Psychology Masters) 2. Theories and Mechanisms in Developmental Psychology (Developmental Psychology Masters) Committees and other administrative roles: 1. Head of mentoring in Psychology 2. AAPR / PRP reviewer 3. Mentor in Psychology and University-wide Eleanor Glanville Institute mentoring programme External roles: 1. Suffrage Women in Science network member 2. International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ) board member, ISAZ membership committee member, Anthrozoös journal committee member 3. MARS Consortium on Human-Animal Interaction 4. External Examiner 5. Reviewer for Funding Bodies and peer-reviewed journals 3. Peer-review (grants/journal articles)

Subject Specialisms

Developmental Psychology, Animal-assisted and other Interventions, Human-Animal Interaction, Dog bite prevention, Injury Prevention, Psycholinguistics, Language Development, Applied Psychology

Qualifications

• PhD in Linguistics / Psycholinguistics within Doctoral Programme for Cognitive Science - University of Hamburg, Germany 1997
• MA in English Linguistics and Russian Literature - University of Hamburg, Germany 1992

Awards

• Vice Chancellor’s award for Public Engagement with Research - Vice Chancellor UoL 2018
• Suffrage Science Award for Women in Science - Medical Research Council (MRC) London Institute of Medical Sciences 2017
• Award of university-wide competitive sabbatical - University of Lincoln 2004
• Won University-wide competition for a 3-year scholarship to employ PhD student from Canada - University of Lincoln 2003
• Travel Awards (various) - British Academy travel grant, Oxford University 1997
• Doctoral Scholarship for 3 years in Cognitive Science Graduate Programme - German Research Foundation 1992

Consultancy

Blue Dog bite prevention programme - assessment, dissemination and distribution, Lincoln Education Assistance with Dogs - best practice guidelines and risk assessment tool; Infant Lab Package - software distribution and management; UK-CDI - first UK-wide early language development norms and standardised questionnaires; Bilingual CDI