Frank Keil: Biographical Sketch

Frank C. Keil is professor of psychology and linguistics at Yale University and master of Morse College. Previously, he held the William R. Kenan, Jr., endowed chair in psychology at Cornell University. His research focuses on how people come to make sense of the world around them. Much of this research involves asking how intuitive explanations and understandings emerge in development and how they are related to notions of cause, mechanism, and agency. His work also explores how children and adults learn to navigate the division of cognitive labor that integrates both formal and informal scientific understanding.  He received the National Institutes of Health multiyear MERIT award in 2003, which provides long-term support for outstanding investigators. He has been a Guggenheim fellow and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He has a Ph.D. in psychology, with an emphasis in developmental psychology, from the University of Pennsylvania (1977).