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
In the Media
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
Becker, A. A., Pyers, J. E., & Caselli, N. E. (2026). Mechanisms of vocabulary acquisition persist under variable language experience. Developmental Science, 29(3), e70169.
Sampson, T., Becker, A., Campbell, E. E., Pyers, J., Hall, W. C., Sehyr, Z. S., Czubek, T., DiPerri, K., Henner, J., Emmorey, K., Petrich, J., Dobbs, C. L., Lieberman, A., Coppola, M., Langdon, C., Pontecorvo, E., Gappmayr, P., Lim, A., Higgins, M., Napoli, D. J., Harrison, N. E., Benedict, R., Holcomb, L., Jones, F., Jr., Bottoms, A., Clark, M. D., & Caselli, N. (2026). Avoiding unintended consequences: Potential harms of science of reading policies on deaf children. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdsade/enag004
Sehyr, Z., Emmorey, K., Pontecorvo, E., Caselli, N., & Buchanan, E. M. (2026). It’s a small world of signs: Semantic network structure in American Sign Language based on free associations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.
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