Janet Werker

Janet Werker, MSRC obtained her doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of British Columbia in 1982 and immediately took up her first academic post at Dalhousie University. She returned to the University of British Columbia in 1986, where she is a Killam distinguished professor and Canada Research Chair in Psychology. In a profuse and innovative research program spanning 35 years, her work has demonstrated that the bases for language acquisition are present in early childhood, well before a single word is pronounced or even understood, and that learning two or even three languages simultaneously is just as natural as learning only one language. Janet Werker’s work has won numerous awards over the years. She was elected associate member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, received a gold medal from SSHRC in 2015, became Killam distinguished professor at the University of British Columbia in 2016 and was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 2017. In 2018, she received the Killam Prize of the Canada Council for the Arts in recognition of her many years of research and studies. In 2019, she received the William Jones lifetime contribution award of the American Psychology Society.