Anna Pot

About me

I'm a Postdoctoral Scholar in Psychology at Stanford University, advised by Laura Carstensen. I obtained my PhD in Linguistics from the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), where I was advised by Kees de Bot and Merel Keijzer. Previously, I worked as a data scientist for the Dutch government.

My research identifies the contribution of language to (cognitive) development in old age. I have written a dissertation about this entitled Aging in a multilingual Netherlands. More specifically, this research uncovers whether, and how, speaking multiple languages contributes to enhanced cognition at an advanced age. I'm particularly interested in how speaking or using multiple languages and dialects can impact cognitive functioning and mental wellbeing.

This page highlights current projects and projects that I have worked on in the past.

Updates

As of January 2024 I will be a Postdoctoral Scholar in the lab of Laura Carstensen at Stanford University.

Projects

Language, aging and cognition

How does speaking multilple languages contribute to cognition at an older age? In my dissertation, I focused on whether we can define in what way multilingualism contributes to healthy aging, among a range of other variables. I found that multilingualism should be regarded a continuum, not binary, and that only when you actively use different languages on a daily basis, cognition benefits.

Aging in a second language environment

When people migrate and age in a linguistic environment that differs from their home language, how does this impact their health and wellbeing? My research shows that a different language environment contributes to lower perceived wellbeing and health in a group of older, female Turkish migrants in the Netherlands.

Pot, A., Keijzer, M., & De Bot, K. (2018). The language barrier in migrant aging. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 23(9), 1139-1157.

Pot, A., Keijzer, M., & de Bot, K. (2017). 11. Enhancing Language Awareness in Migrants’ Third Age to Promote Well-Being. In Third age learners of foreign languages (pp. 176-200). Multilingual Matters.

Pot, A., Keijzer, M., & de Bot, K. (2018). Do low L2 abilities impede healthy aging for migrant older adults in the Netherlands?. Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(1), 109-120.

Data science

As a data scientist, I have developed a risk-based tool to assess report quality in a business setting. This sytem can speed up the report review process. In addition, I have implemented Natural Language Processing techniques to automatically extract key words from documents and helped built a package in Python to anonimize sensitive data in documents.