Judith Holler investigates human language in face-to-face social interaction. In this environment, language consists not only of the words we speak, but also of a plethora of visual signals articulated by the hands, face, head, and torso. These signals contribute to the utterances we produce and to successfully sharing meaning with others. Holler’s research program aims to unravel how these visual bodily signals combine with speech and how they shape conversations, both on a behavioural and a cognitive level. As such, Holler’s research contributes to a reconceptualization of human language as a multimodal, situated phenomenon.
I’m excited to further develop my research program at Radboud University, which offers a unique opportunity for coming together with researchers from a wide range of different backgrounds, allowing us to illuminate central research questions in the language sciences from a rich, multidisciplinary perspective.
About Judith Holler
Prof. dr. Judith A. M. Holler began her academic career at the Georg-August University of Göttingen and the University of Manchester, where she obtained an undergraduate degree in Psychology in 2000. She continued her studies at the University of Manchester to pursue a PhD, which she completed in 2004 with her PhD thesis “Semantic and pragmatic aspects of representational gestures: Towards a unified model of communication in talk.”
After obtaining her PhD, Holler held an Assistant Professor position at the University of Manchester. She then moved to the Netherlands with a Marie Curie Fellowship hosted at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, where she stayed on as a senior investigator. On obtaining an ERC Consolidator grant in 2018, Holler joined the Radboud University as Associate Professor at the faculty of Social Sciences, and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition & Behaviour.
Throughout her career, Judith Holler received various grants, such as ESRC research grants in the UK (2008, 2010), a Marie Sklodowska Curie fellowship (2010), a Leverhulme Trust Research Grant (2011), an ERC Consolidator Grant (2018), and an NWO Open Competition L Grant (2025). In addition to her position as professor, Holler is Senior Investigator Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.