Rate My Professor Vera Kempe

Professor Kempe has secured major research funding, including Leverhulme Trust Grant RPG-2016-093 (£151,059, 2016, PI) on literacy acquisition in dialect exposure, Leverhulme Grant RPG-375 (£67,897, 2012, PI), Royal Society Partnership Grant (£2,700, 2015, PI), Language Learning Research Grants (2010, 2001), British Academy Small Grants (2008, 2003), Nuffield Undergraduate Research Bursary (2006), NATO Collaborative Linkage Grants (2001, 1999), and Spencer Foundation Grant ($35,000, 1999). She co-authored the textbook Language Development and co-edited the Encyclopedia of Language Development with Patricia J. Brooks. Prominent publications include Children are not the main agents of language change (2025, Psychological Review), No evidence for generational differences in the conventionalisation of face emojis (2025, Computers in Human Behavior Reports), Diminutives facilitate word segmentation in natural speech: Cross-linguistic evidence (2007), Diminutivisation supports gender acquisition in Russian children (2003), and The Role of Diminutives in the Acquisition of Russian Gender (2001). With 86 research outputs and over 2,225 citations on ResearchGate, her contributions shape theories of language acquisition and inform educational practices. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences and the Supervisory Board of Studies in Second Language Learning.