McQueen James

James McQueen is a Professor at Radboud University, Netherlands, currently holding the position of Professor of Speech and Learning in the School of Psychology and Artificial Intelligence. He previously served as Professor of Learning and Plasticity in the School of Educational Sciences (2009–2015). His academic journey includes roles at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the MRC Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge.

Education:

• B.A. (Honours, 2.1; Distinction in Prelims) in Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford (1987)
• Ph.D. in Psycholinguistics, University of Cambridge (1992)

Research Interests: McQueen’s work focuses on speech perception, spoken-word recognition, second language acquisition, and perceptual learning in speech. His research explores how listeners adapt to phonological reduction and the neural mechanisms underlying word learning. He has led major grants including the NWO Gravitation Consortium “Language in Interaction” (€27.6M) and projects on auditory category learning and language processing.

Awards:

• 2016: Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science
• 2014: Fellow of the Psychonomic Society
• 1997: Cognitive Psychology Award, British Psychological Society

Advising & Grants: McQueen has supervised over 30 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. His grants include ESRC, DFG, and NWO-funded projects on topics ranging from sign language segmentation to neural correlates of lexical learning. He has coordinated major initiatives like the “Decoding Continuous Speech” project at MPI.

Institutional Roles: He has held leadership roles such as Chairing PhD defenses (since 2017), Speaker for the Language and Communication Research Theme at the Donders Institute (2010–2016), and editorial board memberships for journals like Cognition and Journal of Memory and Language.

Labs & Teams: McQueen is affiliated with the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour and contributed to the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, focusing on interdisciplinary research in language and cognition.