Unlike vision or speech, reading is not something evolution designed the human brain to do. It is a cultural invention, layered onto neural systems that originally evolved for entirely different purposes. And yet, within a few years of childhood, the brain reorganizes itself to make reading seem automatic.

This paradox has shaped my work: how does the brain construct a skill it was never built for?

Using advanced neuroimaging, my colleagues and I have tracked how neural pathways—particularly those connecting visual and language systems—develop as children learn to read. What emerges is not a single “reading center,” but a dynamic network, continuously adapting to experience.

But perhaps the most important insight is this: variation is the rule, not the exception.

For individuals with dyslexia, the brain organizes this network differently. These differences are not deficits in intelligence—they are differences in neural architecture. Recognizing this shifts the conversation from limitation to design: how do we build systems that support diverse ways of learning?

Receiving recognition from the National Academy of Sciences is an honor, but it also sharpens the responsibility. The future of education will not be shaped by intuition alone—it will be shaped by evidence, grounded in how the brain actually learns.