Nan Bernstein Ratner

Dr. Nan Bernstein Ratner is Professor and former Chair, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is also faculty in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroscience (NACS) program, the Language Science Center, and the Developmental Science field program. She is the author/editor of 8 major texts, including The Development of Language, now in its 8th edition, and Psycholinguistics (both with Jean Berko Gleason) and A Handbook on Stuttering (now in its 7th edition) with the late Oliver Bloodstein and colleague Shelley Brundage. Her work primarily addresses the broader contexts of language development and disorder in children, and fluency/speech production across the lifespan, with an emphasis on stuttering. Her research in these areas to date has appeared in 30 chapters, and more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles. With colleague Brian MacWhinney, Dr. Bernstein Ratner administers FluencyBank, a TalkBank (Talkbank.org) initiative that curates and preserves and offers open access to research data in stuttering. Her federal grants also support use of CHILDES TalkBank utilities to re-align standards for children's expressive language development. Dr. Bernstein Ratner also serves as Chair of the TalkBank Advisory Board. Dr. Bernstein Ratner is a frequent presenter at national and international research conferences. Dr. Bernstein Ratner is 2014 recipient of the Honors of the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association (ASHA), an ASHA Fellow, and a recipient of the International Fluency Association Distinguished Researcher award, as well as the University of Maryland Dean's Medal and its award for undergraduate research mentoring. She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She currently serves as immediate Past President of the International Fluency Association.