Hello!

It’s great to see each other again! This week our source is Viridiana Benitez. She can provide insight on the cognitive development of children and bilingualism. 

Viridiana Benitez is an assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University. With expertise in language and cognitive development, she focuses on how bilingualism impacts word learning in infants, children and adults. 
 
At Arizona State, Benitez runs the Learning & Development Lab, a developmental psychology research group that studies children ages 7 and under. This lab is part of the Early Childhood Cognition Research Group, a developmental psychology lab examining how infants and children understand their environment.

Other sources of interest this week.

Winnipeg police arrested a suspect allegedly connected to the murder of three Indigenous women. These series of murders has sparked conversations about the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis in North America.  

Michaela Madrid is the program manager of tribal governance at the Native Governance Center, a Native-led nonprofit that supports the sovereignty and governance of Native nations. Madrid focuses on tribal services, programs and finances.

She’s an expert on the ongoing humanitarian crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and an advocate for combining traditional cultural values and governance strategies to shape policy that will improve the everyday lives of Indigenous people.

Sources of the Week on the news

Read:

• Shaun Harper wrote for Forbes about Deion Sanders leaving as coach of Jackson State University’s football team, and what that means for HBCU athletics. 
• Otis Brawley talked to STAT News about orthodoxy in medicine. 
• Andra Gillespie authored a piece in The Conversation about the Georgia runoff and why fewer Republicans came out to vote for Herschel Walker. 

Listen:

• Christina Greer was on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show to talk about mayor Eric Adams’ plan to involuntarily hospitalize mentally ill people. 
• Alice Wong spoke with KQED about exploring a new approach to health care.