Associate Professor Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus also serves as a Technion Faculty Ambassador and is an associate professor in the Kennedy Krieger Institute and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, and has had a long association with the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Prof. Horowitz-Kraus is a neuroimaging researcher in the field of reading and reading impairments in children. Most reading difficulties are not identified until third grade, but by then the child is often falling hopelessly behind. Her goal is to diagnose and remediate reading challenges as early as possible.
She works with both healthy children and those suffering from genetic risk for reading difficulties, such as children with dyslexia, ADHD, psychiatric disorders, autism, and epilepsy. She also works with children of pre-reading age (birth to six years old), and populations suffering from reading difficulties due to environmental reasons, including children who are not exposed to literacy, have lower interaction with their parents, or spend more time in front of television or computer screens.
Her research focuses on the involvement of “executive functions,” or higher-order cognitive abilities such as attention, memory, and information processing in reading fluently. She adopts a nature-nurture perspective, using MRI, EEG, and eye-tracking data to validate diagnostic tools and develops computerized interventions based on these findings.
Prof. Horowitz-Kraus is a graduate of Tel Aviv University and the University of Haifa. Her association with the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital began in 2011. She rose from her post as a Fulbright fellow to become the program and scientific director of the hospital’s Reading and Literacy Discovery Center and an adjunct associate professor of pediatrics in the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine. She joined the Technion faculty in October 2015 while retaining her relationship with Cincinnati until late 2021.
In addition to her position as an editor in several scientific journals, Prof. Horowitz-Kraus has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, is the principal investigator of several competitive grants, and is active on various boards and scientific societies centered on brain development, neuroscience, and reading.
Prof. Horowitz-Kraus is a member of the Technion Faculty Ambassador Program, which prepares faculty to serve as speakers during events and meetings with supporters in the U.S. and globally. As such, Ambassador Faculty are mentored to better understand the mission of the ATS and other Technion Societies. This “Win-Win” Program is expected to benefit the Technion while also offering its Ambassadors wider exposure to their research and opportunities to polish their presentation skills.
