Invited speakers

Olga Anatoli-Smith
Linköping University, Sweden

Olga Anatoli-Smith is a specialist in bilingual development in early childhood. She holds two PhDs, one in Applied Linguistics (UCLA, 2015) and one in Child Studies (Linköping University, 2025). Her research focuses on bilingual children’s developmental trajectories, children’s agency, interaction in school settings, and the ways in which bilingual educational environments enable—or limit—younger children’s participation.

Her dissertation, Being and Becoming a Bilingual Preschooler: A Co-Operative Action Approach to Bilingual Early Childhood Education and Care, adopts a longitudinal ethnographic approach to examine the role of teaching practices in shaping children’s linguistic and identity development.

Olga's work lies at the intersection of applied linguistics, child studies, and multimodal interaction analysis.

Professional page

Júlia Pons-Florit
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Júlia Pons-Florit obtained her PhD in Language Sciences in 2025 under the supervision of Pilar Prieto (ICREA/UPF) and Alfonso Igualada (UOC). She is a member of the Prosodic and Gestural Studies Group (GrEP-G) and a collaborator with the interuniversity group GRECIL. Her research programme explores the links between multimodality, cognition, and language acquisition.

She developed and evaluated the MultiModal Narrative (MMN) programme, an innovative intervention based on multimodal storytelling designed to enhance narrative skills in children with typical development (TD) and those with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). Júlia's work combines evidence-based practice, implementation science, and fine-grained analyses of gesture, prosody, and interactional dynamics.

Professional page

Ingrid Vilà-Giménez
Universitat de Girona, Spain

Ingrid Vilà-Giménez is an Assistant Professor in Language Education at the University of Girona and a member of the Comparative Minds Research Group and GrEP-G. Her research focuses on language acquisition and multimodality, with particular interest in the interplay between prosody, gesture, and cognitive development.

Her work demonstrates how multimodal resources support discourse learning, pragmatic competence, and the development of effective classroom participation. Ingrid is also interested in the educational implications of multimodality, particularly in teacher education and in improving teaching practices.

Professional page