BIOGRAPHY
Gary Libben, FRSC, is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Brock University. He is a psycholinguist and neurolinguist whose research brings together theoretical and experimental approaches to language processing. Professor Libben has advanced the understanding of how words are represented in the mind and brain by developing new theoretical models of language in the mind and new laboratory methods for its investigation. His research has spanned over a dozen languages, and he has investigated language processing among monolinguals and bilinguals across the lifespan and among persons who have experienced damage to the brain. Professor Libben’s work has revealed how psycholinguistic research can advance the understanding of how the human mind creates meaning.
He is Director of the Words in the World (a Partnership Grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) and is co-founding Editor of the journal The Mental Lexicon. He was founding director of the University of Alberta’s Centre for Comparative Psycholinguistics and has been President of the Canadian Linguistics Association. His research has been supported by major grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
He has served in various university roles related to research. These have included Associate Dean Research (University of Alberta), Associate Vice President Research (University of Calgary), and Vice President Research (Brock University). He has collaborated extensively with students and colleagues across Canada and around the world. His international collaborations have resulted in the development of new research structures, which include the International Conference on the Mental Lexicon. In 2018, he received the Canadian Linguistics Association’s National Achievement Award. He has been Director of the Humanities Division of the RSC Academy of Arts and Humanities and, in 2019, was elected as a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.