Reading in print versus onscreen; mobile phones, email, instant messaging, and text messaging; social networking; relationship between spoken and written language; history of English; general linguistics; higher education

Naomi S. Baron is professor emerita of linguistics in the Department of World Languages and Cultures in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of nine books, including How We Read Now: Strategic Choices for Print, Screen, and Audio; Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World; Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World; and Alphabet to Email: How Written English Evolved and Where It’s Heading. David Crystal wrote of How We Read Now that “Naomi Baron has done a huge service to everyone involved in the study, teaching, and practice of reading – which means all of us.” Nicholas Carr called Words Onscreen “essential for educators, parents, and everyone who loves to read. The late William Safire described Always On as his choice for “most influential and seminal language book of the year.” The book was winner of the 2008 English-Speaking Union’s Duke of Edinburgh English Language Award competition. Baron’s research focuses on the effects of technology on language, social interaction, and learning. She has conducted cross-national studies of mobile phone use and of print versus digital reading practices. A Guggenheim Fellow and Swedish Fulbright Fellow, she was also a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Among her news media appearances, Baron has been on ABC’s Good Morning America and 20/20, CNN, PBS’s News Hour, National Public Radio, BBC Radio, CBC Radio, and Voice of America. She has been interviewed by such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Boston Globe.

To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.