Professor Johan Bolhuis
Johan Bolhuis is Professor of Cognitive Neurobiology at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge.
He received his MSc in Biology (cum laude) at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands (1984). He obtained his PhD in Zoology (cum laude) at Groningen (1989), and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. During the 1990s, he was a Member of High Table at King’s College and Sidney Sussex College. He was an Associate Professor at the Institute of Biology, Leiden University, The Netherlands, before being appointed to his current role by Utrecht University in 2001. He was a Visiting Scholar at Sidney Sussex College (2014–15) and at St Catharine’s College (2016–21). He is an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Professor Bolhuis has served as President of the Royal Dutch Zoological Society (2001–07). He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Behavioural Processes, and editor of seven books, including Brain, Perception, Memory (OUP, 2000), and, together with linguist Martin Everaert, Birdsong, Speech, and Language (MIT Press, 2013). He is co-editor of the academic textbook The Behavior of Animals (2nd Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2022). Trained as a biologist, he has increasingly become interested in the study of the human mind, from a cognitive, neural as well as a philosophical point of view. He is particularly interested in language, as a window to the mind. Language involves a mind-internal computational mechanism that serves as an engine for human thought. Viewing language as a biological system, we can study its structure, evolution, development and neural mechanisms. It has become clear that language has given the human mind unbounded creativity, that has no parallel in either animal or artificial intelligence.
At Clare Hall, Johan is accompanied by his partner, Dr. Gerrie Strik, Rector of a Liberal Arts College in the Netherlands, Humanities scholar, author and publicist.
Select publications
- Bolhuis, J.J., Crain, S., Fong, S. & Moro, A. (2024) AI doesn’t model human language. Nature, 627, 489.
- Bolhuis, J.J., Crain, S. & Roberts, I. (2023) Language and learning: the cognitive revolution at 60-odd. Biological Reviews, 98, 931-941.
- Friederici, A.D., Chomsky, N., Berwick, R.C., Moro, A. & Bolhuis, J.J. (2017) Language, mind and brain. Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 713-722.
- Bolhuis, J.J., Tattersall, I., Chomsky, N. & Berwick, R.C. (2014) How could language have evolved? PLoS Biology, 12(8), e1001934.
- Berwick, R.C., Friederici, A.D., Chomsky, N. & Bolhuis, J.J. (2013) Evolution, brain and the nature of language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17, 89-98.
- Bolhuis, J.J., Okanoya, K. & Scharff, C. (2010) Twitter evolution: Converging mechanisms in birdsong and human speech. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 747-759.
- Bolhuis, J.J. & Wynne, C.D.L. (2009) Can evolution explain how minds work? Nature, 458, 832-833.
- Bolhuis, J.J. & Gahr, M. (2006) Neural mechanisms of birdsong memory. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 7, 347-357.
Select Awards
- 2001: Dutch Zoology Prize, Royal Dutch Zoological Society
- 2007: Tinbergen Lecture, on the occasion of Niko Tinbergen’s 100th birthday, Leiden University
- 2022: Honorary Fellow, St Catharine’s College, Cambridge
Further links
St Catharine’s College: https://www.caths.cam.ac.uk/directory/professor-johan-bolhuis
Dept of Psychology, Cambridge: https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/staff/professor-johan-j-bolhuis
Utrecht University: https://www.uu.nl/staff/jjbolhuis
