Ruthe Foushee

Wonderfest Science Envoy 2020

Ruthe Foushee is a UC Berkeley developmental psycholinguist interested in how collaborative everyday conversation is, and how children are gradually inducted as full members into the adult speech community around them. Her research involves designing toys, puppet shows, and elaborately choreographed performance art pieces to better understand how different environments—and children themselves—influence the course of language-learning. When not conducting research, Ruthe is preaching at science museums and analyzing powerful children’s books.