Academy Fellow

Evan Kidd is Professor of Linguistics at The Australian National University. He is a cognitive scientist specialising in language and cognition. 

Kidd’s research emphasises the importance of understanding how variability in language learners and users (e.g., genetic, cognitive, environmental) and variability across languages contribute to language acquisition, representation, and use. He has made major contributions to the study of first language acquisition, adult first language processing, bilingual and second language acquisition and processing, and to the study of how language intersects with other socio-cognitive processes. The breadth of his work had led to over 130 publications that integrate theoretical concepts and methods from several fields, including linguistics, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and genetics. 

Across his career, Kidd has regularly engaged in the public dissemination of science. This has included many dozens of radio and television interviews and newsprint stories. His research has been featured in diverse popular outlets, including Scientific American, New Scientist, Australian Geographic, and Readers Digest. He has given many public lectures, including a talk at TEDx Sydney, and served as a child development expert on the first season of Old People’s Home for 4 year olds, which won an International Emmy Award in 2020.  

Kidd has made major editorial contributions to multiple journals, book series, and major reference works, including: associate editor of First Language, Cognitive Science, and Australian Journal of Linguistics, linguistics section editor of the MIT Press Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (https://oecs.mit.edu), and co-editor of the Trends in Language Acquisition Research book series (John Benjamins). He has served on the editorial boards of Child Development, Journal of Child Language, First Language, and Language Sciences. 

2003 – 2005: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology 

2005 – 2011: Lecturer/Senior Lecturer: School of Psychological Science, The University of Manchester 

2008 – 2011: Charles La Trobe Research Fellow, La Trobe University 

2012 – 2022: Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor/Professor: Research School of Psychology. Australian National University 

2017 – 2022: Senior Investigator and Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics  

2022 – present: Professor, School of Literature, Languages, and Linguistics, Australian National University. 

2008 – 2011: Charles La Trobe Research Fellow (La Trobe University)

2021 – 2024: Mercator Fellow (Potsdam University)

Member: Australian Linguistics Society

Member: International Association for the Study of Child Language

2023: Best paper award in Language (Linguistic Society of America)

2009: Fresh Science Media Award

1. Kidd, E., Garrido Rodriguez, G., Wilmoth, S., Garrido Guillén, J., & Nordlinger, R. (2025). How does speaking a free word order language influence sentence planning and production? Evidence from Pitjantjatjara (Pama-Nyungan, Australia). Cognitive Science, 49. e70087. 

2. Bruggeman, L., Kidd E., Nordlinger, R., & Cutler, R. (2025). Incremental processing in a polysynthetic language (Murrinhpatha). Cognition, 257: 106075.  

3. Kumarage, S., Donnelly, S., & Kidd, E. (2022). Implicit learning of structure across time: A longitudinal investigation of syntactic priming in young English-acquiring children. Journal of Memory and Language, 127: 104374.  

4. Kidd, E., & Garcia, R. (2022). How diverse is child language acquisition research? First Language, 42, 703-735.  

5. Nordlinger, R., Garrido Rodriguez, G., & Kidd, E. (2022). Sentence planning and production in Murrinhpatha, an Australian 'free word order' language. Language, 98, 187-220.