Bob McMurray


F. Wendell Miller Professor

Research Themes:  The Communicating Mind and Body

Bob McMurray is an F. Wendell Miller Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa, and holds secondary appointments in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, the Department of Linguistics, and the Department of Otolaryngology.

He directs the DeLTA Center (DEvelopment, Learning, Theory and Application) and co-founded the Cognitive Science of Language Program. He received his Bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1998, and a PhD in Brain and Cognitive Science in 2004 from the University of Rochester.

His research focuses on language development, speech perception, reading and word learning in normal and impaired individuals. His work employs psycholinguistic techniques (including eye-tracking and learning paradigms), computational modelling, and cognitive neuroscientific methods. Bob takes a multi-leveled approach to his research, bridging between cognitive and developmental science to diverse fields like theoretical linguistics (phonetics/phonology), otolaryngology (cochlear implantation), speech pathology (language impairment), computational modelling, and cognitive neuroscience (ERPS and intercranial recording).

His work is funded by the National Institute of Deafness and Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Institute for Education Sciences.

First Nations land acknowledegement

We acknowledge that UBC’s campuses are situated within the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, and in the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples.


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