Lisa Zacharski

Short CV

since October 2025: PostDoc in the “Psychological Research Methods and Cognitive Psychology“ Group at the University of Bremen

since April 2025: Visiting Scientist at the University of Freiburg

February 2025: Doctorate (Dr. rer. nat. summa cum laude) at the University of Freiburg, Institute for Psychology, Center for Cognitive Science

June 2021-March 2025: Research Assistant at the University of Freiburg, Institute for Psychology, Center for Cognitive Science

October 2010-March 2021 (paused 2016-2018): Studies in Philosophy (B.A. & M.A.) at LMU Munich, the University of Helsinki, and the University of Oxford; studies in Biology (B.Sc.) with a focus on Neurobiology at the University of Bremen

Awards and Scholarship

July 2024: Society of Text and Discourse’s Annual Diversity and Equity Travel Award for the presentation „Does the use of non-orthographic gender-fair forms impair the readability of texts? Insights from an eye-tracking study“ (2.500$)

June 2013–March 2021 (paused 2016-2018): Scholarship by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes) for my studies in philosophy and the second degree in biology

September 2014–June 2015: Graduate Scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for my studies at the University of Oxford 

August 2012–December 2012: Erasmus Scholarship for my studies at the University of Helsinki

Publications

Zacharski, Lisa; Friedrich, Marcus C. G; Mielke, Julia-Michelle; Evelyn C. Ferstl (in prep.): „Mental representations evoked by the gender colon in German“ 

Decock, Sofie*; Zacharski, Lisa*; Boone, Griet; Ferstl, Evelyn C. (under review: “Comprehensibility of gender-fair language among foreign language learners of German: an experimental study” [*shared first authorship] 

Zacharski, Lisa; Kruppa, Alexandra; Ferstl, Evelyn C. (2025) „The readability of the non-binary gender star in German: Evidence from a lexical decision task”, Social Psychological Bulletin. 20. Article e13719. https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.13719

Zacharski, Lisa (2024): „Using pair forms, criticising the asterisk – Attitudes towards binary and non-binary gender-fair language in German“ in: Pfalzgraf, Falco (Hg.): Public Attitudes Towards Gender-Inclusive Language. A Multilingual Perspective (Language and Social Life, Vol. 35), Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111202280-009

Meuleneers, Paul W.; Zacharski, Lisa; Ferstl, Evelyn C.; Nübling, Damaris (Eds.) (2024): Genderbezogene Personenreferenzen: Routinen und Innovationen, Reihe: Linguistische Berichte (Sonderhefte Bd. 36) Hamburg: Buske Verlag. 

Zacharski, Lisa & Ferstl, Evelyn C. (2023): „Gendered Representations of Person Referents activated by the Nonbinary Gender Star in German: A Word-Picture Matching Task“, Discourse Processes, 60, pp. 294─319. https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2023.2199531

Bröder, Hannah-Charlotte M.; Meuleneers, Paul; Zacharski, Lisa (2022): „Neue Forschungen zur Genderlinguistik – Genderbewusste Sprache in Diskurs, Grammatik und Kognition. Tagungsbericht zur Auftakttagung des DFG-Projekts Genderbezogene Praktiken bei Personenreferenzen am 18. und 19.02.2022“, Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik, 50(3), pp. 548-556. https://doi.org/10.1515/zgl-2022-2025

Ferstl, Evelyn C.; Konieczny, Lars; von Stülpnagel, Rul; Beck, Judith; Zacharski, Lisa (Eds.) (2022): KogWis 2022: understanding minds: 15th Biannual Conference of the German Society for Cognitive Science, University of Freiburg, https://doi.org/10.6094/UNIFR/229611