Susan Goldin-Meadow
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Susan Goldin-Meadow is the Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Comparative Human Development, the college, and the Committee on Education at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
. She is the principal investigator of a 10-year program project grant, funded by the
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development The ''Eunice Kennedy Shriver'' National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It supports and conducts research ai ...
, designed to explore the impact of environmental and biological variation on language growth. She is also a co-PI of the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC), one of six Science of Learning Centers funded by the
National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
to explore learning in an interdisciplinary framework with an eye toward theory and application. She is the founding editor of ''Language Learning and Development'', the official journal of the Society for Language Development. She was President of the International Society for Gesture Studies from 2007–2012.


Background

Goldin-Meadow got her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
where she studied with Rochel Gelman and Lila Gleitman. Before coming to Penn and while an undergraduate at
Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...
, she spent a year at the Piagetian Institute in Geneva, where she conducted research with Barbel Inhelder and Hermine Sinclair and took courses with
Jean Piaget Jean William Fritz Piaget (, ; ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called genetic epistemology. ...
. After Penn, she moved to the University of Chicago. In addition to serving as the editor of ''Language Learning and Development'' for eight years, Goldin-Meadow was an Associate Editor of ''
Developmental Psychology Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...
,
Cognitive Science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
'', and the journal ''Gesture''. She has also served as president of the Society for Cognitive Development and the International Society for Gesture Studies and is the chair-elect for the
Cognitive Science Society The Cognitive Science Society is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields who hold the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind. The society prom ...
. She was the chair of the Section on Linguistics and Language Sciences for the AAAS, and a member-at-large of the Psychology Section and the Linguistics and Language Science Section of the AAAS. She has served a member of the Governing Board of the Cognitive Science Society and the board of directors of the
Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...
. She is currently a member of the Foundation Board of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS). Goldin-Meadow served on the
NIH The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...
Study Section (Language and Communication) and the Advisory Council of the National Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health. In addition, she was a member of the Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development, sponsored by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine––the product of this committee was Neurons to Neighborhoods, published by the National Academy of Science. Goldin-Meadow also served as a member of the committee appointed by the Israeli Council for Higher Education to evaluate the field of psychology and behavioral sciences in Israel, and a member of a Blue Ribbon Panel to advise Qatar on developing Behavioral and Social Sciences (Enhancing Qatar's National Research Enterprise: A review of the Qatar National Research Strategy).


Awards

Goldin-Meadow was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
and is a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
, the
Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...
, the
American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...
(in Developmental Psychology and Experimental Psychology), the Cognitive Science Society, and the
Linguistic Society of America The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded in New York City in 1924, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The society publishes three scholarly journals: ''Language'', ...
(2010). She received the Ten Outstanding Young Citizens Award for Professional Achievement presented by the Chicago Junior Association of Commerce and Industry, and was awarded a John Simon
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
and a James McKeen Cattell Fellowship. Goldin-Meadow has also received a number of teaching awards, at the undergraduate level (Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago) and the graduate level (Burlington Northern Faculty Achievement Award for Graduate Teaching at the University of Chicago), and has also received a Mentor Award from the American Psychological Association (Division 7). Her book, ''Hearing Gesture: How Our Hands Help Us Think'', received the Cognitive Development Society book award. Goldin-Meadow presented the Nijmegen Lectures at the
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (German: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik''; Dutch: ''Max Planck Instituut voor Psycholinguïstiek'') is a research institute located on the campus of Radboud University Nijmegen in Nijm ...
in the Netherlands, and has served as an APA Distinguished Scientist Lecturer, an APS William James Distinguished Lecturer, and an APA Master Lecturer. She has given a number of named lectures––the Boyd McCandless Lecture, the James and Eleanor Gibson Lecture, the Hersh Leibowitz Lecture, the Spiker Memorial Lecture, and the J. R. Kantor Lecture. Most recently, Goldin-Meadow was awarded the prestigious 2021 Rumelhart Prize in
Cognitive Science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
. This prize is awarded annually to an individual or collaborative team making a significant contemporary contribution to the theoretical foundations of human cognition. In 2023, Smith College awarded Goldin-Meadow an honorary degree.


Research interests

Goldin-Meadow's experience at the Piagetian Institute in Geneva piqued her interest in the relation between language and thought. This interest continues to energize her research, which exploits the gestures that we produce with our hands to explore two fundamental questions. # Which properties of language are so fundamental to human language that they will appear in a communication system developed by a child who does not have access to
linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
input? Goldin-Meadow studies this question by observing the home-made gestures, called ''homesigns'', that profoundly deaf children create when they are not exposed to sign language. Homesign offers insight into the linguistic properties that are at the core of human language––properties that children are able to invent on their own, and that conventional sign languages are likely to have contained at the earliest stages of their creation. # Can the gestures that hearing speakers produce when they talk play a role in learning, in particular, in the transition from an understanding that is grounded in movements in space to an understanding that is abstract and generalizable? The gestures that hearing speakers produce when they talk are robust––they appear in congenitally blind individuals, even when they talk to other blind individuals and even though they have never seen anyone gesture, and in deaf children who use sign language as their primary language. These co-speech gestures reflect a speaker's thoughts, often thoughts that don't appear in the speaker's language (either sign or speech) and that the speaker doesn't even know she has. But gesture can do more than reflect thought––it can play a role in changing thought, as part of the language learning process and, once language has been mastered, as part of the learning process that leads to the acquisition of other skills.


References


External links


Susan Goldin-Meadow's HomepageSpatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC)
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Language Learning and Development
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What our hands reveal about our thoughts, with Susan Goldin-Meadow Big Brains Podcast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldin-Meadow, Susan American women psychologists Women cognitive scientists Developmental psycholinguists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Smith College alumni University of Pennsylvania alumni University of Chicago faculty 1945 births Living people Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society Fellows of the Linguistic Society of America Fellows of the American Psychological Association American women linguists Linguists from the United States American women academics 21st-century American women Linguists of sign languages American educational psychologists 21st-century American psychologists