story by Claire Miller
One of the first books Gal Kaldes (B.A. '09, M.Ed. '12, Ph.D. '21) remembers reading as a Georgia State University undergraduate student was “The Language Instinct” by Steven Pinker, an award-winning book in the field of linguistics that explores the “the instinct to learn, speak and understand language,” according to its introduction.
“It sparked my interest in linguistics, especially in morphology, which is the study of how words are built from parts like prefixes, suffixes and bases that add to their meaning,” she said. “I was captivated by how languages differ in structure and concept, yet all humans share an innate ability to acquire language.”
Kaldes was also inspired by Regents’ Professor MaryAnn Romski and her research on toddlers’ emerging spoken language abilities, and she decided she wanted to pursue a career helping others learn to communicate better.
She earned her master’s degree in communication sciences and disorders from the College of Education & Human Development (CEHD) in 2012 and became a speech-language pathologist working in K-12 schools in West Palm Beach, Fla.
“I served students from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds,” she said. “As a bilingual speech-language pathologist, I drew on my own experiences as a multilingual learner and appreciated how well Georgia State prepared me to understand how language, identity and culture intersect in clinical practice.”
Kaldes returned to Georgia State to earn her doctorate in developmental psychology and received support for her studies as a student fellow in the university’s Center for Research on the Challenges of Acquiring Language and Literacy (RCALL). The RCALL fellowship program provides an interdisciplinary training experience for Georgia State doctoral students interested in studying language and literacy acquisition.
During her doctoral program, she worked on research projects with Associate Professor Elizabeth Tighe and Professor Joe Magliano to study how adult students enrolled in literacy programs improve their reading and vocabulary, and how college students engage with reading tasks.
Now, Kaldes is a postdoctoral fellow in the CEHD’s Adult Literacy Research Center (ALRC), where she’s working with Associate Professor Jason Braasch and Regents’ Professor Daphne Greenberg to develop her research agenda.
“I feel incredibly fortunate to be in a role that integrates my clinical background, research skills and commitment to supporting adult learners through evidence-based and equity-driven work,” she said. “I’ve had the chance to work on projects that explore how adults build their reading skills and how we can better support them. My work currently looks at how we can understand and design more equitable assessments of adult literacy skills, and how motivation, including student self-confidence and engagement in everyday experiences, shape the way people approach reading.”
She recently presented two posters at the Frontiers in Adult Education Research Conference, where both received Top Poster awards.
Kaldes and ALRC postdoctoral researcher Lindsay McHolme presented the first poster entitled, "When Adult Education Honors Multilingual Communities: A Translanguaging Literacies Approach to Adult Literacy Assessment.” This presentation focused on the literacy practices of adults living in a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood in the midwestern U.S.
Kaldes also gave a poster presentation entitled, “Digital Assessment and Literacy: An Analysis of a PIAAC Literacy Item Using Process Data,” which looked at how adults interact with digital tasks – not only what answers they gave to questions in a digital assessment, but “how long they spent, how many pages they visited and how they used the information on screen,” she explained.
“Understanding how someone gets to an answer helps us support adult learners more effectively in digital environments and to think carefully about how these assessments are designed and used,” she added.
She’s considering different career paths moving forward – teaching at a university, consulting or finding a research-focused role connected to education. No matter which she chooses, Kaldes hopes to see improvements in education for adult learners so that they can successfully expand their language and literacy skills.
“We are living in a time of major change, from the rapid rise of artificial intelligence to shifts in the economy, public health and access to education. These changes are shaping how we live, how we work and how we learn,” she said. “This moment has made me more committed than ever to supporting adult learners and helping ensure that education systems reflect the realities and strengths of the people they serve. I truly believe adult education is not only relevant, but essential to building a more informed, equitable and resilient society.”