Summer Keller is a recent graduate of DePaul University’s College of Education’s Early Childhood Education (ECE) Bachelor of Science degree, having crossed the stage for commencement this June 2026. Summer’s experience within the ECE program was unique given a chance lecture she attended that set her off on a path of extracurricular learning through the Brain & Language Lab in DePaul’s Psychology department. Her experience exemplifies DePaul's Layered Learning™ approach, showing how a single classroom idea can spark unexpected cross-disciplinary opportunities. Read about Summer’s expansive experiences marrying Early Childhood Education with cognitive study of the brain and language through the Lab.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
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COLLEGE OF EDUCATION: How did you get involved with the Brain & Language Lab at DePaul University?

SUMMER KELLER: One of my professors introduced a scientist to us in class and we learned about what was happening on the neurological level regarding early childhood education. When children are going through life experiences that are unfortunate: gun violence, home situations where there's alcohol abuse or drug abuse, what is happening on that neurological level that is impacting their ability to learn in the classroom? There’s a lot more going on beneath the surface. I brought that up to one of my professors that I was incredibly interested in it, and she said, “Look into it. If this is what you're interested in, pursue it.” So, I went to DePaul’s Career Center, and it just so happened that one of the students was the manager of the Brain & Language Lab. I told her I was interested. She said, “Come to one of my meetings…You don't have to be a neuroscience or psychology student if you're interested in this, you come and attend and see what you think.”

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION: What did you learn in your time with the Lab?

KELLER: Being in the classroom, we learn so much about these theorists whose pedagogy and teaching we implement, like Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Lev Vygotsky, Piaget, and I was so curious how these scientists with theories rooted in the 1800s, how are we implementing them in the modern-day 21st century? How was it connecting from lab to classroom? I felt there was a gap that I didn't understand and I was so curious how I could learn about this, how could I also push these theories? So that was why I wanted to work at the Brain & Language Lab, or at least to volunteer to see what it's like. You sit down in a lab, and you have these conversations with other people that are interested in this field, and then you look at different theories. I wanted to learn about how we were conducting these studies? How are we collecting the data? What are we doing with that data? What are we going to be implementing with this data? Is this going to get published? Are other people going to look at the work?

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION: What kind of work did you do with the Lab once you got up and running with them?

KELLER: We had meetings once a week. I was conducting literature reviews; I was assisting with participant sessions, so the graduate-level students were making these research studies, and I was able to conduct the studies on the undergrad students. And supporting the graduate student and faculty research. We would have theories that we were looking over, or research articles the graduate students were implementing in their studies. I helped a student propose a theory on children on the autism spectrum and the benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism. We both have a passion for advocating for families, specifically mothers, that are bilingual and multilingual. They want to speak their home tongue to their babies, and they were nervous to do so because the autism spectrum disorder. It does impact the communication, and we wanted to advocate that yes, you can speak to them in your home language. It means so much to them. It’s a part of who they are. You don't have to speak the English language; you can speak what is most important to you with your children.

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION: Could you see pursuing that work into graduate or professional studies?

KELLER: I would love to go to grad school and come up with my own ideas and my own theories. We look at the brain and it's such a massive organ. I think that we undermine that. We go to the hospital for our heart, for our legs (for examples), but there's so much going on up here, and I want to learn about that so I can help change the futures of children and early childhood education for the better.

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To find out more about the Early Childhood Education (BS) degree, visit https://www.depaul.edu/academics/programs/early-childhood-education

To find out more about the Brain & Language Lab in DePaul’s Psychology program, visit https://condor.depaul.edu/svirtue/Lab.html