Provost James C. Bean announced this week that Iris Berent, professor of psychology and linguistics, has been selected as the 52nd Robert D. Klein Lecturer.

Professor Berent’s talk, “How Human Brains Give Rise to Language,” is scheduled for Tuesday, March 22 at 3 p.m. in Raytheon Amphitheater.

Provost Bean writes in his announcement, “Iris Berent’s research examines the basis of the uniquely human capacity for language. She addresses the question from a broad interdisciplinary perspective, using a diverse set of methods (behavioral, neural, and genetic), languages (spoken and signed), and research populations (adults, children, and infants; typically developing readers and those with dyslexia). She has published extensively in top scientific journals—including Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognition, and Language—and her work has been funded by both NIH and NSF. Her book, The Phonological Mind, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.”

The Klein University Lecturer Award started in 1964 and honors a member of the teaching faculty who has contributed with distinction to his or her own field of study.