Carla Hudson Kam

Carla Hudson Kam is a Professor and Department Head in the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia (UBC), within the Faculty of Arts. She holds a BA from Simon Fraser University (1996) and a PhD from the University of Rochester (2003). Her research focuses on language acquisition, developmental language processing, and gesture’s role in language learning. She explores how non-linguistic factors influence language learning and how language contact and change shape linguistic structures.

Her work bridges experimental and theoretical approaches, examining topics such as the emergence of sign languages, iconicity in gesture, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying language acquisition. She leads the Language and Learning Lab at UBC, fostering collaborative research on child and adult language learning. Her contributions include developing the Infant Bookreading Database (IBDb), a resource for studying book-reading’s impact on early language development.

Prominent publications include studies on sign language conventionalization, gesture-guided pronoun interpretation, and the role of phonetic naturalness in speech perception. She actively engages in academic discourse on methodology, advocating for transparent and replicable research practices.