CV
Contact Information
| Name | Kelsey Frewin |
| Professional Title | Developmental Psychologist |
| [email protected] |
Professional Summary
A developmental psychologist exploring how babies make sense of objects, actions, and words in the world around them. My research combines behavioural and neurophysiological methods, including EEG and eye-tracking, to understand how language and everyday experience shape early cognitive development.
Experience
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2023 - 2026 Norwich, UK
Senior Research Associate
University of East Anglia
Postdoc on ESRC-funded Baby Language & Conceptual Knowledge Study (BLoCKS) with Teodora Gliga (UEA), Marie Smith (Birkbeck), Nadja Althaus (UEA), and Evelyne Mercure (Goldsmiths).
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2017 - 2019 Cardiff, UK
Research Assistant
Cardiff University
Research assistant in the Tiny to Tots lab at Cardiff University, working with Sarah Gerson, Ross Vanderwert, and Travis Proulx.
Interests
Research Interests: verb learning, embodied learning, language development, conceptual development, categorisation, deafness, infant EEG methods
Education
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2019 - 2023 Cardiff, UK
PhD
Cardiff University
Developmental Psychology and Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
- Frewin et al. (2026) - earliest evidence of verb comprehension in infancy, demonstrating that 10-month-olds recognise mislabelled actions.
- Frewin et al. (2025) - showed that infants’ motor development is more strongly associated with verb than noun vocabulary growth, suggesting a role for infants’ own actions in verb learning.
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2015 - 2016 Brighton, UK
MSc
University of Sussex
Cognitive Neuroscience
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2011 - 2014 Aberystwyth, UK
BSc
Aberystwyth University
Psychology
Awards
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2020 Junior Researcher of the Year Award
Cardiff University
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2019 Fully Funded Student-Led PhD Studentship
ESRC Wales Doctoral Training Partnership, Cardiff University
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2018 ESRC Festival of Social Science Event Funding
ESRC
Stepping Into the Minds of Children
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2015 Chancellor’s Masters Scholarship
University of Sussex
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2011 Excellence Scholarship
Aberystwyth University
Publications
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2025 The who, when, and why of pacifier use
Pediatric Research
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2019 What is going on in babies’ brains when they learn to do something?
Frontiers for Young Minds
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Under Review A Guide to EEG Decoding: From experiment design to Multivariate Pattern Analysis.
In F. F. Santos. (Ed.), Event-Related Potentials: Methods for reproducible research. Springer Nature.
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Under Review What comes first, the CHICKEN or the [word] chicken? The developmental interplay between conceptual and language learning.
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Under Review “To Achieve Anything, I Have to Be His Champion”: Lived Experiences of Deaf Children’s Parents
Skills
Research Methods: EEG, ERP, Eye-tracking, MVPA, Infant behavioural methods, Behavioural coding
Programming Languages: R, MATLAB
Statistical Software: R, SPSS, JASP
EEG Toolboxes: EEGLAB, ERPLAB, APICE
Experimental Presentation Software: PsychoPy, E-Prime
Stimulus Editing: Adobe Photoshop, Pixelmator, GIMP, Audacity, PRAAT, iMovie, FFMPEG
Database Management & Surveys: REDCap, Qualtrics, RippleScience
Behavioural Coding: ELAN, DataVyu
Languages
English : Native speaker
British Sign Language : Beginner
Certificates
- 3rd International Workshop on Naturalistic Experimentation of Child Development - Birkbeck, University of London (2026)
- 33rd EEGLAB Summer School Workshop - EEGLAB (2023)
- Neurocognitive Methods for Infant and Toddler Research Summer School - Utrecht University (2017)
References
- Available upon request