The Reading Brain in a Digital World

Apr 29, 2026 1:00pm - 2:30pm
University Library: Robert & Maureen Gohstand Leisure Reading Room

The University Library is pleased to welcome back Maryanne Wolf for an insightful exploration of how digital technology is reshaping human cognition. Drawing on neuroscience, she examines the ways in which constant digital engagement can undermine deep reading, empathy, and critical thinking. Her work emphasizes that reading is a learned skill—not an innate one—and calls for developing a “bi-literate” brain that can thrive in both print and digital environments.

Maryanne Wolf is a scholar, teacher, and advocate for children and literacy around the world. She is the Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA and the former John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. She has authored over 170 scientific publications; Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (15 translations; HarperCollins, 2007); Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 2016); and Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital Culture (12 translations; HarperCollins, 2018). She is co-author with Martha Denckla of the RAN/RAS naming speed tests, a universal predictor of dyslexia, and the creator of the RAVE-O Intervention Program for all struggling readers.

She has received multiple awards for her contributions to the neuroscience of reading; the major awards from the International Dyslexia Association and the Einstein Award from the Dyslexia Foundation for her dyslexia research; and the Walter Ong Award and the Alfred Korzybski Award for her work on the effects of different mediums on the intellectual development of the species. Most recently, she was elected a permanent member of the Pontifical Academy of Science.

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