Nadine Gaab Awarded Named Chair

Professor Nadine Gaab has been announced as the Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professor in Learning Differences, effective January 1. 

Recently granted tenure as a professor of education at HGSE, Gaab is a leading expert in the neurobiology of learning differences, including the neurobiology of dyslexia. Her Gaab Lab at HGSE focuses on typical and atypical learning trajectories from infancy to adulthood with a special emphasis on language, reading, and literacy development.

“Nadine Gaab’s two decades of work as a developmental cognitive neuroscientist, particularly her research into the neurobiology of dyslexia, has profoundly advanced how we understand learners with atypical learning trajectories. That work has also informed innovative approaches for educators and advanced educational policy,” said Dean Nonie Lesaux. “The Ed School and the field are far better because of the Gaab Lab, and her appointment as the Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professor of Learning Differences is a fitting recognition of that impact.”

Gaab’s significant accomplishments in cognitive neuroscience and research have been honored with numerous awards, including the 2024 IMBES Translation Award from the International Society of Mind, Brain, and Education; the 2020 Norman Geschwind Memorial Lecture by the International Dyslexia Association; and the 2023 Academic Research Recognition Award from the World Literacy Foundation. Gaab is also the co-founder of EarlyBird Education, a gamified platform system for identifying children at risk for language-based learning disabilities.

The Silvana and Christopher Pascucci Professorship in Learning Differences, held most recently by the late Thomas Hehir, is bestowed upon a faculty member whose work focuses on overcoming barriers related to learning differences and special education and whose interdisciplinary approach to teaching and research results in solutions that impact practice and policy. 

Gaab joins Professor James Kim who also assumed a named chair on January 1 and four other faculty members who were awarded named chairs in fall 2025.