Douglas H. Whalen is an American

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1982 as a student of

Louis M. Goldstein Louis M. Goldstein is an American linguistics, linguist and cognitive scientist. He was previously a professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics and a professor of psychology at Yale University and is now a professor in the Department o ...

. Since 2011 he has been a Distinguished Professor in the Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences program at the

CUNY Graduate Center The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and post-graduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the Ci ...

. He is a long-standing member of

Haskins Laboratories Haskins Laboratories, Inc. is an independent 501(c) non-profit corporation, founded in 1935 and located in New Haven, Connecticut, since 1970. Haskins has formal affiliation agreements with both Yale University and the University of Connecticut; ...

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

Connecticut, where he is a Senior Scientist and Vice President for Research. Whalen studies the relationship between

speech production Speech production is the process by which thoughts are translated into speech. This includes the selection of words, the organization of relevant grammatical forms, and then the articulation of the resulting sounds by the motor system using the vo ...

and

speech perception Speech perception is the process by which the sounds of language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by wh ...

from the perspective of the

motor theory of speech perception The motor theory of speech perception is the hypothesis that people perceive spoken words by identifying the vocal tract gestures with which they are pronounced rather than by identifying the sound patterns that speech generates. It originally cl ...

. Whalen is the founder of the

Endangered Language Fund The Endangered Language Fund (ELF) is a small non-profit organization based in New Haven, Connecticut. ELF supports endangered language maintenance and documentation projects that aim to preserve the world’s languages while contributing rare li ...

, and served as its president until 2015, when he became Chair of the Board of Directors. He is also a founding member of the

Association for Laboratory Phonology The Association for Laboratory Phonology is a non-profit professional society for researchers interested in the sound structure of language. It was founded to promote the scientific study of all aspects of phonetics and phonology of oral and sign l ...

and on the advisory board for Healing Through Language, an organization that researches the connection between indigenous language revitalization and physical well-being. From 2006 through 2008, he served as a program officer at the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

where he was affiliated with the

Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental proces ...

, Documenting

Endangered Languages An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead langu ...

, and

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

NSF BCS Linguistics information
/ref> programs.

References

Linguists from the United States Haskins Laboratories scientists Speech perception researchers Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-linguist-stub