Washington University in St. Louis / Psychology / Brett Kessler

Brett Louis Kessler

	Assistant Professor of Psychology and Assistant Professor of Philosophy–Neuroscience–Psychology
	Washington University in St. Louis.
	Campus Box 1125
	One Brookings Drive
	St. Louis MO 63130-4899 USA
Email:
Phone:	1-314-935-8839
Fax:	1-314-935-7588
WWW:	http://BrettKessler.com
Citizenship:	USA

Education

• 1999.

  PhD, Stanford University, Department of Linguistics.
  Dissertation title: Estimating the Probability of Historical Connections Between Languages.
  Committee: Paul Kiparsky (chair), Edward Flemming, Jarrett Rosenberg, Thomas Wasow.

• 1993.

  AM, Stanford University, Dept. of Linguistics.
  Thesis title: Sandhi in Classical Sanskrit.
  Committee: William Poser (chair), Andrew Garrett, Paul Kiparsky.

• 1984.

  MS, Indiana University, Bloomington, Computer Science.

• 1979.

  MLS, Indiana University School of Library and Information Science.

• 1977.

  BA, Indiana University, Bloomington.
  Double major: Linguistics and German.

Honors and Awards

• 2007- With Rebecca A. Treiman. National Institutes of Health grant R01HD051610-01A2. “Children’s Early Knowledge of Letters and Spelling Across Languages.”
• 2006- With Rebecca A. Treiman. The March of Dimes grant 12-FY06-235, “Spelling in Deaf Children With Very Early Cochlear Implants.”
• 2003-2006. With Rebecca A. Treiman. The March of Dimes grant 12-FY03-40, “Spelling in Deaf Children.”
• 2002-2006. With Rebecca A. Treiman. National Science Foundation Award 0130763, “Statistical Bases of Reading and Spelling.”
• 2001. National Science Foundation travel award for NATO Advanced Study Institute: Literacy Acquisition, Assessment, & Intervention: The Role of Phonology, Orthography, and Morphology (Italy, Nov. 2001).
• 1996-1997. Whiting Fellowship.
• 1993-1996. Stanford University Fellowship.
• 1977. Graduation with highest distinction, Honors in Linguistics.
• 1977. Phi Beta Kappa.
• 1973-1977. Hoosier Scholarship; Indiana University Merit Scholarship.
• 1973. Bosse Scholarship.

Books

• Denning, K., Kessler, B., & Leben, W. R. (2007). English vocabulary elements. (2nd ed.) New York: Oxford University Press.

• Kessler, B. (2001). The Significance of Word Lists: Statistical Tests for Investigating Historical Connections Between Languages. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Distributed by The University of Chicago Press.

Published Papers

• Ellefson, M. R., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (in press). Learning to label letters by sounds or names: A comparison of England and the United States. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

• Kessler, B. (in press). Language families. In P. C. Hogan, (Ed.). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Language Sciences.

• Kessler, B. (in press). [Review of the book Language Classification by Numbers, by April McMahon and Robert McMahon]. Anthropological Linguistics..

• Kessler, B. (2008). The mathematical assessment of long-range linguistic relationships. Language and Linguistics Compass, 2, 821–839.

• Pollo, T. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2008). Preschoolers use partial letter names to select spellings: Evidence from Portuguese. Applied Psycholinguistics, 29, 195–212.

• Balota, D. A., Yap, M. J., Cortese, M. J., Hutchison, K. I., Kessler, B., Loftis, B., et al. (2007). The English Lexicon Project. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 445−459.

• Garabík, R., Caravolas, M., Kessler, B., Höflerová, E., Masterson, J., Mikulajová, M., et al. (2007). A cross-linguistic database of children’s printed words in three Slavic languages. In Levická, J., & Garabík, R. (Eds.). Computer Treatment of Slavic and East European Languages: Fourth International Seminar, Bratislava, Slovakia, 25−27 October 2007 : Proceedings (51−64). Bratislava: Tribun.

• Kessler, B. (2007). Word similarity metrics and multilateral comparison. In Proceedings of Ninth Meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology (6–14). Stroudsburg PA: Association for Computational Linguistics.

• Kessler, B., Treiman, R., & Mullennix, J. (2007). Feedback consistency effects in single-word reading.. In E. L. Grigorenko & A. J. Naples (Eds.), Single-word reading: Behavioral and biological perspectives (159−174). New York: Psychology Press.

• Pollo, T. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2007). Three perspectives on spelling development. In E. L. Grigorenko & A. J. Naples (Eds.), Single-word reading: Behavioral and biological perspectives (175−190). New York: Psychology Press.

• Treiman, R., Cohen, J., Mulqueeny, K., Kessler, B., & Schechtman, S. (2007). Young children’s knowledge about printed names. Child Development, 78, 1458−1471.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2007). Learning to read. In M. G. Gaskell (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 657−666). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Evans, R. (2007). Anticipatory conditioning of spelling-to-sound translation. Journal of Memory and Language, 56, 229−245.

• Treiman, R., Levin, I., & Kessler, B. (2007). Learning of letter names follows similar principles across languages: Evidence from Hebrew. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 96, 87−106.

• Ashby, J., Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Rayner, K. (2006). Vowel processing during silent reading: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32, 416–424.

• Bourassa, D. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2006). Use of morphology in spelling by children with dyslexia and typically developing children. Memory & Cognition, 34, 703–714.

• Hayes, H., Treiman, R., and Kessler, B. (2006). Children use vowels to help them spell consonants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94, 27–42.

• Kessler, B., & Lehtonen, A. (2006). Multilateral comparison and significance testing of the Indo-Uralic question. In P. Forster & C. Renfrew (Eds.), Phylogenetic methods and the prehistory of languages, (33–42). Cambridge, England: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2006). Spelling as statistical learning: Using consonantal context to spell vowels. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 642–652.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Pollo, T. C. (2006). Learning about the letter name subset of the vocabulary: Evidence from U.S. and Brazilian preschoolers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 211–227.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., Zevin, J., Bick, S., & Davis, M. (2006). Influence of consonantal context on the reading of vowels: Evidence from children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 93, 1–24.

• Caravolas, M., Kessler, B., Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. (2005). Effects of orthographic consistency, frequency, and letter knowledge on children's vowel spelling development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 307–321.

• Cassar, M., Treiman, R., Moats, L., Pollo, T. C., & Kessler, B. (2005). How do the spellings of children with dyslexia compare with those of nondyslexic children? Reading and Writing, 18, 27–49.

• Hayes, H., Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2005). English spelling: Making sense of a seemingly chaotic writing system. The International Dyslexia Association Perspectives, 31 (3), 8–10.

• Kessler, B. (2005). Phonetic comparison algorithms. Transactions of the Philological Society, 103, 243-260.

• Pollo, T. C., Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2005). Vowels, syllables, and letter names: Differences between young children’s spelling in English and Portuguese. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 161–181.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005). Writing systems and spelling development. In M. Snowling & C. Hulme (Eds.). Science of reading: A handbook (pp. 120–134) Oxford, England: Blackwell.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2004). The case of case: Children's knowledge and use of upper- and lowercase letters. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 413-428.

• Kessler, B. (2003). [Review of the book Time Depth in Historical Linguistics]. Diachronica, 20, 373-377.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Bick, S. (2003). Influence of consonantal context on the pronunciation of vowels: A comparison of human readers and computational models. Cognition, 88, 49-78.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2003). The role of letter names in the acquisition of literacy. In R. Kail (Ed.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior, (vol. 31, 105–135). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

• Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2003). Is English spelling chaotic? Misconceptions concerning its irregularity. Reading Psychology, 24, 267-289.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Bick, S. (2002). Context sensitivity in the spelling of English vowels. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 448-468.

• Kessler, B., Treiman, R., & Mullennix, J. (2002). Phonetic biases in voice key response time measurements. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 145-171.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Bourassa, D. (2001). Children's own names influence their spelling. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22, 555-570.

• Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2001). Relationships between sounds and letters in English monosyllables. Journal of Memory and Language, 44, 592–617.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., Knewasser, S., Tincoff, R., & Bowman, M. 2000. English speakers' sensitivity to phonotactic patterns. In M. B. Broe and J. Pierrehumbert (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology V: Acquisition and the Lexicon (pp. 269-282). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

• Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. 1997. Syllable structure and the distribution of phonemes in English syllables. Journal of Memory and Language, 37, p. 295–311.

• Kessler, B., Nunberg, G., & Schütze, H. 1997. Automatic detection of text genre. In 35th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and 8th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Proceedings of the conference, 7–12 July, Madrid, p. 32-38.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (1995). In defense of an onset–rhyme syllable structure for English. Language and Speech, 38, 127–142.

• Kessler, B. (1995). Computational dialectology in Irish Gaelic. In Seventh Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, p. 60–66.

• Kessler, B. (1994). Sandhi and syllables in Classical Sanskrit. In The proceedings of the Twelfth West Coast Conference on FormalLinguistics, E. Duncan, D. Farkas, and P. Spaelti, (eds.), p. 35–50. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI.

• Kessler, B, & Shaw, D. (1983). SOLOS: A student-oriented information retrieval system using MARC records. Information Technology and Libraries, 2, 272–279.

Patents

• Nunberg, G., Pedersen, J. O., Schütze, H., Kessler, B., Grefenstette, G. 1999. Text genre identification. European Patent EP0889417.

Presentations

• Pollo, T. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2008, July). The nature of young children’s nonphonological spellings. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Asheville, NC.

• Kessler, B. (2007, July). Better than chance? Randomization models for evaluating whether lexical similarity implies historical connection. Paper presented at the Workshop on Alternative Approaches to Language Classification, Stanford, CA.

• Kessler, B. (2007, June). Word similarity metrics and multilateral comparison. Paper presented at the ninth meeting of the ACL Special Interest Group in Computational Morphology and Phonology, Prague.

• Ellefson, M., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2007, March). Learning to label letters by names or sounds. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA.

• Pollo, T. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2006, July). How do preschoolers use letter names to select spellings? Poster presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

• Treiman, R., Cohen, J., Mulqueeny, K., Kessler, B., & Schechtman, S. (2006, July). Young children’s knowledge about printed names. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, November). Long-distance anticipatory effects in spelling-to-sound translation. Paper presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, November). Variability in spelling-to-sound translation. Paper presented at the Perspectives on Linguistic Variation Workshop, Washington University in St. Louis.

• Ashby, J., Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Rayner, K. (2005, August). How are vowels processed during silent reading? Paper presented at the European Conference on Eye Movements, Bern, Switzerland.

• Bourassa, D., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, July). Use of morphology in spelling by children with dyslexia and typically developing children. Poster presented at the meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science, Montréal, July, 2005.

• Hayes, H., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, June). Children use vowels to help them spell consonants. Poster presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Toronto, Canada.

• Pollo, T. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, June). Beginning spellers exploit inexact letter-name matches. Poster presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Toronto, Canada.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Pollo, T. C. (2005, April). U.S. and Brazilian preschoolers' knowledge of letter names: Variability across letters, languages, and children. Paper presented at Cross-cultural Approaches to Language and Literacy Development, SRCD (Society for Research in Child Development) Biennial Meeting, Atlanta, GA.

• Kessler, B. (2005, March). Verifying historical relationships between groups of languages. Paper presented at Mathematical Modelling and Analysis of Language Diversification, Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

• Kessler, B. (2005, January). Is English really related to Finnish? Adapting psychological research methods to solve linguistic puzzles. Paper presented at a colloquium of the Washington University Department of Psychology.

• Ashby, J., Treiman, R., Kessler, B., Martin, A., & Rayner, K. (2004, November). The minimality principle reconsidered: Evidence for the early use of elaborated phonological representations during silent reading. Poster presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Minneapolis, MN.

• Kessler, B., & Lehtonen, A. (2004, July.) Multilateral comparison and significance testing of the Indo-Uralic question. Paper presented at Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, England.

• Caravolas, M., Snowling, M., Hulme, C., & Kessler, B. (2004, June). How orthographic consistency affects the development of spelling skills in English: Implications for theories of orthographic learning. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Amsterdam.

• Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2004, June). Sensitivity to statistical contextual patterns when spelling consonants in English. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Amsterdam.

• Pollo, T. C., Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2004, June). Influence of writing systems on young children's spelling in English and Portuguese. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Amsterdam.

• Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2004, June). The case of case: Children's knowledge and use of upper- and lower-case letters. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Amsterdam.

• Treiman, R., Kessler, B., Bick, S., & Davis, M. (2003, November). Influence of consonantal context on the pronunciation of vowels: Evidence from children. Paper presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

• Ashby, J., Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Rayner, K. (2003, November). Parafoveal processing of vowel contexts: Evidence from eye movements. Poster presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

• Kessler, B. (2003, February). Multilateral comparison and the problem of chance resemblances. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Denver, CO.

• Kessler, B., Treiman, R., & Bick, S. (2002, June). Use by skilled spellers of context-sensitive patterns: Onsets and codas constrain the spelling of English vowels. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Chicago, IL.

• Kessler, B. (2002, March). Sensitivity to intrasyllabic context in human and computer processing of letter-phoneme correspondences. Paper presented at California State University, Fresno, and at the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

• Kessler, B. (2001, November). Factors that affect oral word reading. Paper presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute. Literacy Acquisition, Assessment, and Intervention: The Role of Phonology, Orthography, and Morphology. Barga, Italy.

• Kessler, B. (2001, November). Determining the statistical significance of sound correspondences. Paper presented at the Tenth Annual Workshop on Comparative Linguistics Reconstruction Fundamentals, Detroit, MI.

• Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2000, November). Relationships between sounds and letters in English monosyllables. Paper presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, LA.

• Kessler, B. (1999, November). When do lexical resemblances mean that languages are historically connected? Linguistics Colloquium, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI.

• Kessler, B. (1998, May). Estimating the probability of historical connections between languages using recurrent sound correspondences. Phonology Workshop, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

• Kessler, B. (1995, March). Computational dialectology in Irish Gaelic. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Dublin, Ireland.

• Kessler, B. (1995, January). The phonotactics of English CVC monosyllables. Phonology Workshop, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

• Treiman, R. & Kessler, B. (1994, November). Distributions of phonemes in English CVC words and implications for language processing. Paper presented at the meeting of the Psychonomic Society, St. Louis, MO.

• Kessler, B. (1993, April). Sandhi and syllables in Classical Sanskrit. Paper presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, Santa Cruz, CA.

• Kessler, B. (1993, January). Sandhi in Sanskrit. Phonology Workshop, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

• Kessler, B. (1992). A spelling corrector for English based on knowledge of sound-spelling correspondence. Paper presented at SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.

Teaching

• Teacher.
  • Washington University in St. Louis.
    • Historical and Comparative Linguistics (Linguistics 320). Fall 2005, Fall 2007.
    • Introduction to Computational Linguistics (Linguistics 320). Spring 2006.
    • Introduction to Linguistics (Linguistics 170D). Five times, Fall 2005 through Spring 2008.
    • Phonetics (Linguistics 312). Spring 2007.
    • Writing Systems of the World (Linguistics 396 seminar). Fall 2006.
  • Stanford University.
    • Introduction to Language Change (Linguistics 60). Spring 1995.
    • The Structure of English Words (Linguistics 70). Fall 1995.
  • Indiana University.
    • Pascal (Computer Science). Fall 1981.
• Teaching Assistantships.
  • 1997, Fall. The Structure of English Words (Linguistics 70, Stanford). Teaching assistant for William Leben.
  • 1994, Fall. The Structure of English Words (Linguistics 70, Stanford). Teaching assistant for William Leben.
  • 1994, Feb. Phonology (Linguistics 205, Stanford). Substitute teacher.

Other Work Experience

• 2002-2005. Research Scientist. Psychology Department, Washington University in St. Louis. Studied the statistical and psycholinguistic bases of reading and spelling.

• 1999-2002. Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Cognitive Area of the Psychology Department at Wayne State University.
  Rebecca Treiman, PI. Studied the relationship between pronunciation and spelling in English, from statistical and psycholinguistic standpoints.

• 1996-1998. Consultant. Palo Alto Research Center.
  Automatic Genre Recognition project. Project managers: Geoffrey Nunberg, Hinrich Schütze.

• 1996. Sanskrit Consultant. Lexicon Branding, Sausalito, CA.

• 1986-1993. Software Engineer. Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA.
  Worked in the Natural Language Project, which developed an engine for using Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar to transduce typewritten English sentences into scripts for accessing applications. Also worked on lexical and morphological resources to support cursive handwriting recognition (filtering of neural net output) and document retrieval. Project managers: Dan Flickinger, Derek Proudian.

• 1984-1986. Programmer. Development Operations and Artificial Intelligence, Xerox.
  Projects included exploration of voice annotation, text and image scanning, lexical analysis. Defined Xerox character set for the International Phonetic Alphabet.

• 1981-1984. Programmer. Psychology Department, Indiana University. Part time.
  Implemented a specialized system for the retrieval and statistical analysis of data on children's spellings, to support faculty research in psycholinguistics (Rebecca Treiman).

• 1979-1981. Programmer/Analyst and Cataloging Librarian. Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
  Trained and supervised cataloguers of rare books. Designed and implemented an automated storage and retrieval system for bibliographic records.

• 1974-1979. Junior Cataloger for Jewish and South Asian Languages. Indiana University Libraries. Part time.
  Responsible for the cataloguing of books written in Yiddish, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and related languages.

Academic Service

• 2008. Program committee, Midwest Computational Linguistics Colloquium

• 2008. Selection committee, Undergraduate Honors Fellowship, College of Arts and Sciences, Washington University

• 2005− Academic advisor for students majoring in the Philosophy−Neuroscience−Psychology program, College of Arts and Sciences, Washington University.

• 2005− Academic advisor for minors in Linguistics, College of Arts and Sciences, Washington University.

• 2005− Coordinator for the Linguistics program for University College and Summer School, Washington University.

• 2005− Redesigned and maintain Web site for Linguistics program.

• 2008- Maintain University student and departmental records for the Linguistics Program.

• 1997- Refereed for Applied Psycholinguistics, Applied Statistics, Blackwell Publishing, Psychology & Linguistics Books, Cerebral Cortex, Cognition, COLING/ACL, Computational Linguistics, Developmental Psychology, Diachronica, International Journal of American Linguistics, International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, Journal of Memory and Language, Language and Cognitive Processes, Language and Linguistics Compass, the National Science Foundation, the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Oceanic Linguistics, Personality and Individual Differences, Psychological Reports, Psychological Review, Psychological Science, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Reading and Writing, Scientific Studies of Reading.

• 1995. Editor of The little red book for Stanford linguists, 3rd ed.

• 1995-1996. Linguistics Department graduate student representative, Stanford University.

• 1994-1995. Member, Linguistics Colloquium Committee, Stanford University.

• 1993-1997. Member, Committee on Graduate Studies, Dept. of Linguistics, Stanford University.

Membership in Professional Organizations

• Linguistic Society of America.
• Association for Computational Linguistics.
• Society for the Scientific Study of Reading.

Languages

• Good reading knowledge of English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Yiddish, Esperanto, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian.

• Have also studied Latin, Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese, Irish, Old Irish, Hawaiian, Russian, Hebrew, Classical Tibetan, Old Saxon, Old English.

Last change 2008-10-08 14:57:17 -0500