Robert Englebretson’s academic career began with fieldwork in Indonesia, research on Colloquial Indonesian grammar and discourse, stancetaking in conversational interaction, and the role of social interaction in motivating and shaping grammatical structures. More recently, his research agenda has shifted to the perceptual, cognitive, and linguistic underpinnings of braille reading and writing. 

Englebretson has won numerous teaching awards during his time at Rice. He was a recipient of the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching in 2010 and again in 2025; the Sarah A. Burnett Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences award in 2015; and the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize in 2007.

In 2008, Englebretson revised and published a braille version of the International Phonetic Alphabet to empower better access to phonetics for blind and visually-impaired people working in language-related fields. In November 2019, the Braille Authority of North America recognized Englebretson with the Darleen Bogart Braille Excellence Award for this work. Also in 2019, a team of researchers including Englebretson, Simon Fischer- Baum ( Rice University) and Cay Holbrook ( University of British Columbia) were awarded an Exploration research grant from the Institute for Education Sciences ( AWARD No. R324A190093) “ Exploring the Knowledge, Skills, and Strategies Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments Need to Effectively Teach Braille Reading and Writing.” His current work seeks to bring braille research squarely into the mainstream of the reading sciences, and to contribute to evidence-based approaches to improving braille literacy. 

Please visit Englebretson’s academic website at http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~reng to access his current CV, downloadable publications and course syllabi, information on IPA Braille, and links to recent podcast and media interviews.