Dr. Kuhl is the Bezos Family Foundation Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Learning, the Codirector of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, the Director of the NSF Science of Learning Center, and Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Rodin Academy, and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Acoustical Society of America, and the American Psychological Society. Dr. Kuhl is internationally recognized for her research on early language and bilingual brain development, and for studies that show how young children learn. Her work has played a major role in demonstrating how early exposure to language alters the brain, and how early measures of the brain’s response to language predict the course of language development. These findings have implications for bilingual education and reading readiness, for early diagnosis of developmental disabilities such as autism, and for research on ‘critical periods’ in human development.
Dr. Kuhl’s work has received wide media coverage. She appeared in the Discovery television series The Baby Human; the NOVA series The Mind; the The Power of Ideas on PBS; and The Secret Life of the Brain, also on PBS. She has discussed her research on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, NHK, and CNN, and has been quoted in the New York Times, Time, and Newsweek. In 2001, she coauthored The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn.
Awards and Credentials
- Silver Medal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1997
- Kenneth Craik Research Award, Cambridge University, 2005
- Faculty Lectureship Award, University of Washington, 1998
- Outstanding Achievement Award, University of Minnesota, 2007
- Gold Medal of the American Institute of Physics, 2008
Recommended Reading List
- “Principles of Neural Science” (5th Ed.). Kuhl, P. K. et al. (in press). Language, McGraw Hill.
- “Neural Substrates of Early Language Acquisition.” Kuhl, P. K. et al. (2008). Annual Review of Neuroscience, 31.
- “Linking Infant Speech Perception to Language Acquisition: Phonetic Learning Predicts Language Growth.” Kuhl, P. K. (2008). Infant Pathways to Language. Erlbaum.
