Tom Roeper, Director of the Language Acquisition Lab, is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts. Tom has been studying child language for over thirty years and recently wrote a book about research on child language, The Prism of Grammar: How Child Language Illuminates Humanism. He is a co-author of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV), co-editor of Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, and one of the founding editors of Language Acquisition.

Tom's email address: roeper -at- linguist -dot- umass -dot- edu

Barbara Pearson is interested in the fascinating question of how children learn language so well and so quickly. She is currently focused on quantifier words, "every," "all," "some," "none," and "most."  She was project manager for the DELV and coordinates the new Center for the Study of African American Language.  She has also studied bilingual children (from infants to teens) and just wrote a book, Raising a Bilingual Child, A Step by Step Guide for Parents. Get one for all your friends!

Barbara's email address: bpearson -at- research -dot- umass -dot- edu

Jill de Villiers is Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at Smith College. Jill has authored and edited three books about language acquisition and numerous chapters and journal articles, most of them on the acquisition of complex syntax in preschoolers. She is now studying the impact of language acquisition on cognitive development, particularly on theory of mind.

Jill's email address: jdevil -at- science -dot- smith -dot- edu.

Peggy Speas is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a founding member of the Navajo Language Academy, which promotes scholarship on the Navajo language and supports Navajos in their efforts to keep their language alive and strong. She is the co-author of Diné Bizaad Bínáhoo'aah (Rediscovering the Navajo Language).

Peggy's email address: pspeas -at- linguist -dot- umass -dot- edu.

Helen Stickney is a PhD student in Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her main research areas are child language acquisition of syntax and semantics. Helen is working on her PhD Thesis.

Helen's email address: hstickne -at- linguist -dot- umass -dot- edu

Tanja Heizmann is a Linguistics PhD student from Germany at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her main research areas are child language acquisition and syntax. Tanja wrote her masters thesis at the University of Stuttgart in Germany on modal verbs in German and English. This masters thesis looked at how children interpret the difference between "John might clean up his room" and "John must clean up his room." Tanja is currently working on her PhD thesis, "Acquisition of Exhaustivity in Clefts & Questions, and the Quantifier Connection - A Crosslinguistic Study of English and German." When she is not working on her thesis (it happens), Tanja enjoys skiing and cooking.

Tanja's email address: tanja -at- linguist -dot- umass -dot- edu

Emily Sowalsky is the current acquisition lab manager. She studied Linguistics and Psychology as an undergraduate and wrote her honors thesis on the relationship between language and "Theory of Mind" acquisition. Theory of Mind refers to the idea that other people have thoughts that are different from your own. She is currently studying Theory of Mind with three-year-olds, four-year-olds, and five-year-olds. Emily enjoys hiking and traveling.

Emily's email address: esowalsky -at- gmail -dot- com.

Danny Green is an undergraduate senior at UMass, majoring in Linguistics and Psychology. He is currently working on his honors thesis studying the acquisition of reflexive anaphoric expressions such as "themselves" and "each other" with three-, four-, and five-year-olds. In his free time, Danny enjoys singing with his a cappella group the Vocal Suspects and being a co-manager at the UMass People's Market.

Danny's email address: green -dot- danielr -at- gmail -dot- com.

Anna Verbuk is a recent lab alumna.

Anna's email address: averbuk -at- hotmail -dot- com