Lucas Cruz
- PhD student
Connect
Location
- Room 213, Sir William Hardy Building, Downing Site, Cambridge CB2 3EB
About
Lucas Cruz is a PhD researcher in Psychology at the Brain, Language, and Bilingualism Lab, supervised by Dr Mirjana Bozic and advised by Prof Matt Lambon Ralph. His research examines how semantic knowledge is represented in bilingual speakers. He is particularly interested in the interaction between language and memory in supporting conceptual knowledge, especially abstract meaning. Using behavioural and neuroimaging methods, he investigates how concepts are organised and accessed across languages, and how bilingual experience influences the cognitive and neural architecture of semantic representations.
Before joining Cambridge, Lucas completed a joint master's degree in Linguistics at the University of Verona (Italy) and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), graduating with highest honours from both institutions. His master's research examined semantic attraction, a phenomenon in which semantic similarity between words leads to illusions of plausibility during sentence comprehension.
Lucas has held research positions at the Cognition & Brain Plasticity Unit (University of Barcelona), the Perception and Awareness Lab (University of Verona), and the Language, Cognition, and Text Lab (University of Verona). Across these roles, he has contributed to research on mild cognitive impairment, bilingualism, semantic and predictive language processing, developmental dyslexia, and the neural correlates of visual awareness. His work combines behavioural experiments with eye-tracking, EEG, EROS, and other cognitive neuroscience methods to investigate language, cognition, and bilingualism.
Alongside my research and teaching activities, I contribute to academic service and student representation within higher education institutions and international training programmes.
- Academic Affairs Officer, King's College Graduate Union, University of Cambridge (2025–present)
- Teaching Assistant Coordinator, NYI Global Institute of Cultural, Cognitive, and Linguistic Studies (2023–present)
- Exam Invigilator, King's College Cambridge (2026–present)
- Student Representative, Joint Faculty–Student Committee, University of Verona (2022–2024)
I am also actively involved in the international research community through conference presentations, interdisciplinary collaborations, and participation in advanced training programmes in linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive neuroscience.
Research
My research lies at the intersection of psycholinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and bilingualism. I am interested in how semantic knowledge is represented and processed across languages, and how bilingual experience shapes conceptual representations and language comprehension.
My current PhD project investigates semantic representations in bilingual speakers, with a particular focus on the relationship between language experience and conceptual knowledge. More broadly, I am interested in language processing, semantic memory, predictive mechanisms in comprehension, and the effects of bilingualism on cognition across the lifespan. To address these questions, I combine behavioural, eye-tracking, and neurocognitive methods.
Research interests include bilingualism and multilingualism, semantic memory and conceptual representations, language comprehension and sentence processing, predictive processing, cognitive neuroscience of language, language and ageing, mild cognitive impairment, and experimental approaches to language and cognition.
Teaching and supervision
I have teaching experience across linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science. I have served as a teaching assistant at the Federal University of Pernambuco, the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and the NYI Global Institute of Cultural, Cognitive, and Linguistic Studies.
Courses for which I have provided teaching support include:
- Experimental Syntax
- Neuropragmatics
- Introduction to Syntax
- Puzzles in Semantics and Pragmatics
- Topics in Sentence Processing
