Dr Alper Kumcu is a language researcher at the Department of Translation and Interpreting at Hacettepe University in Turkey.
In 2011, he completed an MA at Hacettepe University on eye movements in simultaneous interpreting with text, one of the first studies on interpreting using the eye movement paradigm. He then started a PhD in Linguistics at the same university, but left the programme to pursue a postgraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Birmingham in the UK. He obtained an MSc degree with distinction from the School of Psychology. He then completed his PhD in the same department in 2019, under the supervision of Dr Robin L Thompson, with a thesis entitled ‘Looking for language in space: spatial simulations in memory for language’. His PhD thesis investigated the role of space and spatial perception in verbal memory.
He received the Science Incentive Award in Social Sciences from Hacettepe University in 2020. He now teaches mainly interpreting at Hacettepe University and works as a co-editor of the Journal of Translation, Cognition & Behaviour from John Benjamins. His research investigates language, memory, mental imagery and embodied cognition from an experimental and data-driven perspective.