Morten Christiansen, professor of psychology, was recently elected as a Society Fellow by the Cognitive Science Society. The award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the cognitive science community. As one of nine new fellows elected in 2017, Christiansen is the first Cornell faculty to receive this honor, joining 143 others.
The Cognitive Science Society was established in 1979 as an organization striving to promote the discipline of cognitive science, and to “foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study.” The Society describes its fellows as individuals “whose research has exhibited sustained excellence and had sustained impact” on the discipline. Fellows typically conduct interdisciplinary research and often are significant members of the cognitive science community.
Christiansen received his PhD in cognitive science from the University of Edinburgh in 1995, and joined the Cornell faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2001. He is co-director of the Cognitive Science Program at Cornell, Professor in Cognitive Science of Language at Aarhus University, Denmark, as well as Senior Scientist at the Haskins Labs. His research focuses on the interaction of biological and environmental constraints in the evolution, acquisition and processing of language.
He is the author of more than 175 scientific papers, and has edited several books. His newest monograph, "Creating language: Integrating evolution, acquisition, and processing" from MIT Press provides an overview of his work over the past 20 years.
The full list of fellows can be found here.