Caleb Everett

Caleb Everett is the son of linguists Daniel Everett and Keren Everett.{{cite book |last=Everett |first=Daniel |title=Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle |year=2008 |publisher=Pantheon Books |isbn=978-0-375-42502-8}} He spent much of his childhood in the Amazon rainforest, where his parents worked as missionaries and linguists with the Pirahã people. During this time, he lived in a hut and was home-schooled by his parents while also experiencing local indigenous culture, including learning traditional skills alongside Pirahã children.{{cite journal |last=Everett |first=Daniel L. |title=Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=46 |issue=4 |year=2005 |pages=621–646 |doi=10.1086/431525|url=https://repository.ubn.ru.nl//bitstream/handle/2066/41103/M_248492.pdf}}

Everett earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh, followed by master's and doctoral degrees in linguistics from Rice University. His doctoral dissertation focused on the Amazonian language Karitiâna. He later conducted post-doctoral research in linguistics at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

Everett joined the University of Miami in 2007 as a professor of anthropology. He later expanded his role to include psychology and served in several administrative positions, including chair of the anthropology department from 2017 to 2021, and senior associate dean for academic affairs and subsequently for faculty affairs and college diversity. He also served as a faculty member for the Semester at Sea program in 2015.

Notably, Everett returned to the Amazon as a researcher to study the Pirahã people, investigating how the absence of number words in their language influenced their perception of quantity—research that would form the basis for his work on numerical cognition and linguistic relativity.

In March 2025, he assumed the role of Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Delaware, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science.{{cite news |date=Dec 20, 2024 |title=New Dean Appointed for College of Arts & Sciences |url=https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2024/december/new-dean-college-arts-sciences-caleb-everett/ |access-date=March 20, 2025 |publisher=UDaily}}

Everett's research centers on how language shapes cognition and culture, with a focus on linguistic anthropology and cognitive science.{{cite web |title=Caleb Everett |url=https://people.miami.edu/profile/8252219a530e6059a7a7c785471fed54 |publisher=University of Miami |access-date=March 20, 2025}} His work on numerical cognition posits that numbers are a cultural invention, refined over time, as explored in Numbers and the Making of Us, based on fieldwork with indigenous Amazonian communities. His studies on linguistic relativity, detailed in his 2013 book, investigate how language influences thought across cognitive domains, challenging universalist theories.{{cite book |title=Linguistic Relativity |date=2013 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110308143/html |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |doi=10.1515/9783110308143 |access-date=March 20, 2025 |last1=Everett |first1=Caleb |isbn=978-3-11-030780-1}}

His interdisciplinary methods include computational analyses, experimental studies, and fieldwork, with recent work examining aerosol particles in speech, linking anthropology to environmental science. His publications, cited over 2,274 times,{{cite web |title=Caleb Everett - Google Scholar |url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=69uyzIoAAAAJ |publisher=Google Scholar |access-date=March 20, 2025}} reflect his broad impact across multiple disciplines.

Everett's key works include:

• A Myriad of Tongues: How Languages Reveal Differences in How We Think (2023) – Winner of a PROSE Award and selected as one of the top 10 science books of fall 2023 by Publishers Weekly{{Cite web |last=Greenawalt {{!}} |first=Marc |title=Fall 2023 Adult Announcements: Science |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/new-titles/adult-announcements/article/92416-fall-2023-adult-announcements-science.html |access-date=2025-03-20 |website=PublishersWeekly.com}}
• Numbers and the Making of Us (Harvard University Press, 2017) – Explores the cultural evolution of numbers; winner of the 2018 PROSE Award and named one of the 10 best science books of the year by Smithsonian.
• Linguistic Relativity: Evidence across Languages and Cognitive Domains (De Gruyter Mouton, 2013) – Analyzes language's role in cognition.

Additional articles appear in journals like Scientific American and Nature Communications. His research has been covered by major media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Science, Nature, National Geographic, PBS, and the BBC. A comprehensive list of his publications is available on his [http://www.calebeverett.org personal website].{{cite web |title=Caleb Everett |url=http://www.calebeverett.org/ |publisher=Caleb Everett |access-date=March 20, 2025}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.calebeverett.org Official website]
• [https://www.udel.edu/academics/colleges/cas/about-us/college-leadership/caleb-everett/ University of Delaware Profile]
• [https://people.miami.edu/profile/8252219a530e6059a7a7c785471fed54 University of Miami Profile]
• [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=69uyzIoAAAAJ Google Scholar Profile]
• [https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Caleb-Everett-59052498 ResearchGate Profile]

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Category:American anthropologists

Category:American psychologists

Category:University of Delaware faculty

Category:University of Miami faculty

Category:Rice University alumni

Category:University of Pittsburgh alumni

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people