Rate My Professor Linda Smith

Linda Smith is a Distinguished Professor and Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, where she has been on the faculty since 1977. She earned a B.S. in experimental psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1973 and a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977. Affiliated with the Cognitive Science Program and listed among Developmental Psychology faculty, Smith directs the Cognitive Development Laboratory, focusing on early developmental processes. Her career includes pioneering contributions to understanding infant perception, cognition, and action, with extensive research supported by major grants, including a $10.9 million European Research Council grant in 2024 for studying shape learning and a $700,000 NSF grant for developing machines that think like toddlers.

Smith's research employs a complex systems approach to examine sensory-motor dynamics of attention and learning, the development of visual object recognition, and word learning, particularly from 12 to 24 months when children acquire language. Key publications include the book 'A Dynamical Systems Approach to the Development and Evolution of Cognition and Action' (with Esther Thelen, MIT Press, 1994), 'Infants rapidly learn word-referent mappings via cross-situational statistics' (with Chen Yu, Cognition, 2008), and recent works such as 'New insights on infant word learning' (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022) and studies on visual experiences in early infancy (2024). Her influence spans developmental psychology and cognitive science, informing AI models of infant vision and learning. Smith has received the David E. Rumelhart Prize (2013), Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Experimental Psychologists (2019), William James Fellow Award (2018), and is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.