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Michelle Luna

Assistant Research Professor

Assistant Research Professor
Office
E390 Corbett Family Hall, Psychology
Notre Dame, IN 46556
Email
mluna4@nd.edu

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Professor Luna is NOT open to admitting graduate students for fall 2027 matriculation.

Biography

Dr. Michelle Luna studies how children develop early language and cognitive skills used to succeed academically. She is particularly interested in how contextual factors influence how children learn and applying research findings in educational settings. Prior to coming to Notre Dame, she studied preschoolers' word and category learning with the Language and Cognitive Development Lab at UCLA. At Notre Dame, she is the managing director of Tutor-ND and works closely with the Center for Educational Research and Action (ERA). Her current work focuses on implementing various shared book reading interventions, supporting design-based research at TutorND, and examining factors at the intersection of language and cognitive development.

Education

Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Notre Dame
Ph.D., M.A., University of California, Los Angeles
B.A., M.A., University of Notre Dame

Representative Publications

Ryan, E., Botter, P., Luna, M. L., Bailey, A, & Darriet, C. (2024). Bilingual Oral Language Development Among Dual Language Immersion Students: Use of a Bayesian Approach with Language Learning Progressions. Applied Psycholinguistics. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716424000067
 
Shaw, S. T., Luna, M. L., Rodriguez, B., Yeh, J., Villalta, N., & Ramirez, G. (2022) Mathematical Creativity in Elementary School Children: General Patterns and Effects of an Incubation Break. Frontiers in Education, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.835911
 
Luna, M. L., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2021). Arbitrary but Predictive Cues Support Shifting Attention to Overlooked Features. Journal of Memory and Language, 120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2021.104251
 
Schonberg, C. C., Russell, E. E., & Luna, M. L. (2019). Effects of Past Language Experience and Present Language Context on the Shape Bias in Spanish-English Bilingual Children. Developmental Science, 23(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12879