Kathy Conklin joined Rice University in 2026 after 21 years at the University of Nottingham, U.K. She is a psycholinguist whose research examines how language (mainly words and multi-word expressions like “bread and butter”) is learned, represented, and processed in both a first (L1) and second (L2) language. 
 
While much of her research addresses fundamental questions about language processing, she also engages in applied work, using psycholinguistic methods to investigate real-world communication. In particular, she examines how written texts can be made more readable and accessible for diverse populations and contexts. This work has involved collaboration with industry and public-sector partners, including law firms, insurance companies, the NHS, and the BBC. In partnership with colleagues in Applied Mathematics and Physics, she has helped develop a readability tool grounded in psycholinguistic research and informed by statistical and mathematical modelling and machine learning. 
 
Her research draws on a range of experimental methods, including behavior and EEG, and she is a leading expert in the eye-tracking of language. She is co-author of the book Eye-tracking: A Guide for Applied Linguistics Research (2018, Cambridge University Press), which was translated into Chinese (2020) and Arabic (2024). In addition, she serves as an Action Editor for Cognition, a leading journal in cognitive science. She currently serves on the editorial board of Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, a journal devoted to methodological excellence and innovation, and on Reading in a Foreign Language, which aims to elevate both theoretical and pedagogical standards in foreign language reading. She regularly serves on grant review panels for major funding bodies across the world, including those in Canada, Europe, Hong Kong, Netherlands, U.K., and U.S.A.