Congratulations to Professor Michael Frank, Associate Professor of Psychology and, by courtesy, of Linguistics, who has been named to the David and Lucile Packard Professorship in Human Biology on October 16, 2018.
The David and Lucile Packard Chair in the Program in Human Biology was established in the Program in Human Biology in 1999. Human Biology provides an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the human being from biological, behavioral, social, and cultural perspectives.
Professor Michael Frank is a developmental psychologist who studies children's language learning and how it interacts with their developing understanding of the social world. He is interested in bringing larger datasets to bear on these questions and uses a wide variety of methods, including eye-tracking, tablet experiments and computational models. Recent work in his lab has focused on data-oriented approaches to development, including the creation of large datasets like Wordbank and MetaLab. Frank also has a strong interest in replication, reproducibility, and open science; some of his research addresses these topics. Frank has been recognized as a rising star by the Association for Psychological Science.
An outstanding Stanford University scholar, Professor Frank will draw on his expertise to teach in the sophomore required Human Biology Core course: Behavior, Health and Development. He has served already on Human Biology's Executive and Curriculum Committees, and he has mentored numerous Human Biology students in research and Honors theses.
Mr. Packard, who died in 1996, joined William Hewlett to form the Hewlett-Packard Company in 1939. As a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees, Mr. Packard played a key role in the move of the medical school from San Francisco to the main campus in the late 1950s and the construction of the Stanford Medical Center.
Mrs. Packard, the former Lucile Salter of San Francisco, graduated from Stanford in 1935. Mrs. Packard was actively involved in fundraising and planning for the Children's Hospital, named in her honor after her death in 1987. She had a keen interest in children’s health and development.