Prakash Padakannaya

Short bio:

Prakash Padakannaya is a professor of Psychology at CHRIST University, Bengaluru, India. He was trained in educational psycholinguistics and cognition during his Ph.D. at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, India, and the MRC Cognitive Development Unit, London, U K. His Ph.D., focusing on Reading Development in Oriya was the first study that showed that phonemic awareness is not so crucial for learning to read Indian alpha-syllabary. His research interests include reading, dyslexia, Psycho/Neurolinguistics, and cognition among preliterate, young-literate, adult-literate, and illiterate populations, employing multiple approaches that comprise behavioral (including eye-tracking), neural (brain imaging), and genetic techniques. He is a recipient of many prestigious fellowships, including Mombusho, the Japanese Government Fellowship, Fulbright Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship, and Erasmus Mundus Visiting Professor Fellowship. He is an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS), USA, and the National Academy of Psychology, India. He is a Founder Co-editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science (Springer). He is currently serving as the Managing Editor for the same journal. He is also an Associate Editor for Frontiers Psychology. He is an EC member of IUPsyS and Treasurer of the Asia Pacific Psychology Alliance (APPA). He served as President, Secretary-General, and Convenor of the National Academy of Psychology, India. He has been an expert member on the Department of Science and Technology Task Force on Cognitive Science (Govt. of India), the University Grants Commission, the National Council for Educational Research Training, and similar agencies of national importance (India). Ongoing research includes Curiosity (and Learning & Memory), Cognitive development in pre-term babies, Dyslexia across languages, and Math intervention.