Naomi Caselli
Director, BU AI & Education Initiative
Director, BU Deaf Center
Associate Professor
Naomi Caselli is an associate professor of Deaf education, director of the Deaf Center, and the director of the AI and Education initiative at Boston University. She is hearing, and her first languages are American Sign Language (ASL) and English. She leads a research team that works to make research on language—across education, computer science, linguistics, psychology, and medicine—inclusive of sign languages, and to ensure all deaf children have access to language. Her research is centered on three questions:
- How does early language experience shape how deaf children learn language?
- How is the sign language lexicon structured, learned, and processed?
- How can we responsibly use AI to make the world more accessible to sign language users?
Recent News
- Scholarly Accomplishments, November 2025
- Scholarly Accomplishments September 2025
- Why Continued Federal Research Matters
- How AI Will Change Education
- New Center Promotes Universal Sign Language Access
- Five BU Wheelock Faculty Promoted
- Challenging the Anti-ASL Actions of the ACLU of Delaware
- The Machines Are Coming
- The Complex Relationship between AI and Education
- Global Conference on Sign Language Explores Acquisition and Accessibility
In the Media
- Making the World More Accessible for Sign Language Users
- Through Instagram, BU Deaf Studies Empowers the Deaf Community
- American Sign Language Study Shakes Up Theory of Words
- Imperfect Sounds
- AI @ BU—A to Z
- Meet BU’s Newest Associate Professors
- Hariri Institute, Wheelock Collaborate to Research AI’s Impact on Education
- POV: With ChatGPT’s Arrival, Should Educators Be Mourning the End of the College Essay?
- A ‘Historic’ LAUSD Vote On Deaf Education Stirs An Old Debate: Should Kids Learn Both Speech & Sign Language?
- Can Artificial Intelligence Reveal Why Languages Change Over Time?
Education
PhD, Psychology and Cognitive Science, Tufts University
MA, Psychology, Boston University
EdM, Deaf Education, Boston University
BA, Liberal Arts, Evergreen State College
Research
Recent Grants/Contracts
NIH 1R01 DC018279, 2020-2026 "Effects of input quality on ASL vocabulary acquisition in deaf children"
NSF, BCS-1918252 (Role: PI) 2019-2022 "Collaborative Research: Quantifying systematicity, iconicity, and arbitrariness in the American Sign Language Lexicon”
NSF, BCS-1749384 (Role: PI) 2018-2021 "Collaborative Research: Multimethod Investigation of Articulatory and Perceptual Constraints on Natural Language Evolution"
NIH R21 Early Career Research Award DC016104 (Role: PI) 2017-2021 "American Sign Language Vocabulary Acquisition”
NSF, BCS-1625793 (Role: PI) 2016-2020 "The structure of the ASL lexicon: Experimental and statistical evidence from a large lexical database (ASL-LEX)"
Selected Publications
Campbell, E. E., Pyers, J., Caselli, N., Lieberman, A., & Borovsky, A. (2025). Perceptual-semantic features of words differentially shape early vocabulary in American Sign Language and English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 46, e27.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13428-016-0742-0
https://academic.oup.com/jdsde/article/26/2/263/6142509
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10489223.2023.2178312
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022347621000366