Dr. Stephen Crain

Biography

Stephen Crain is a Professor Emeritus at Macquarie University, where he has held various leadership roles including Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders. His research focuses on child language acquisition, adult language processing, and neurolinguistics. He has contributed significantly to the empirical assessment of theory in Universal Grammar and has been particularly active in investigating semantic knowledge among young children. Crain's academic journey began with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1971, followed by a PhD from the University of California, Irvine in 1980. He served as head of the Linguistics Department at the University of Connecticut from 1991 to 1994 and at the University of Maryland from 1995 to 2003, where he established the Cognitive Neuroscience Language Laboratory. Since moving to Australia in 2004, he has driven the development of magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems for studying cognitive processing in children. His leadership in Australia extends beyond Macquarie University, as he has held various prestigious positions including Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales and Member of the National Committee on Brain and Mind in the Australian Academy of Science. He has also been involved in grant investigations related to language development, processing, and disorders, collaborating with international teams on significant research projects.

Research Interests

Experience