Gernsbacher received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1983, and was an assistant, associate, and full professor at the University of Oregon, from 1983 to 1992, when she then joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is a Vilas Research Professor, the Sir Frederic C. Bartlett Professor of Psychology, and a Data Science Institute Affiliate. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Experimental Psychologists, the American Psychological Association (Divisions 1, 3, and 6), the American Psychological Society, the American Educational Research Association, the Psychonomic Society, and Society for Text and Discourse.
Gernsbacher has received a Research Career Development Award and a Senior Research Fellowship from the National Institutes of Health, a Fulbright Research Scholar Award, a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Texas at Dallas, a James McKeen Cattell Foundation Fellowship, the George A. Miller Award, a Professional Opportunities for Women Award from the National Science Foundation, a Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Text and Discourse, a Distinguished Service to Psychological Science Award from APA, the Ernest R. Hilgard Lifetime Achievement Award, the Clifford T. Morgan Distinguished Leadership Award from the Psychonomic Society, a Sloan Foundation Fellowship from Teaching Integrity in Empirical Research, and the Phi Kappa Phi (Honor Society) Biennial Scholar Award.
Gernsbacher has served as President of the 25,000-member Association for Psychological Science, President of the Society for Text and Discourse, President of the Division of Experimental Psychology of the APA, President of the Foundation for the Advancement for Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Member-at-Large of the American Association for the Advancement in Science, Chair of the APA Board of Scientific Affairs, President of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, Chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Psychology Section, Chair of the Cognitive Science Society’s Annual Convention, Vice President and Chair of the International Travel Committee of the Society for Teaching of Psychology, advisor for Women in Cognitive Science, member of the Psychonomic Society Governing Board, the Medical Affairs Committee of the National Alliance for Autism Research, the Advisory Committee of the Social, Behavioral, & Economic Sciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation, and AAAS’s Scientific Program Committee.
Gernsbacher is an award-winning teacher, whose open-access, active-learning courses were deemed APA’s 2018 Outstanding Educational Resource. In 1998, Gernsbacher received the Hilldale Award for Distinguished Professional Accomplishment, the highest award bestowed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty. She has served as editor-in-chief of the journal, Memory & Cognition, co-editor of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, associate editor of Cognitive Psychology and Language and Cognitive Process, and numerous other editorial boards. She has delivered the William James Lecture, the Norman Anderson Distinguished Lecture, the Psi Chi Distinguished Lecture, the APS Teaching Institute Distinguished Lecture, the Caskey Lecture, the John Kendall Lecture, the Ferne Forman Fisher Lecture, an APA Distinguished Scientist Lecture. She was the Inaugural Lufkin Honorary Lecturer and the Inaugural Evan L. Brown Memorial Lecturer. She recently delivered the Ricciuti Lecture and APS’ “Bring the Family” address and served as a Nifty Fifty speaker, in conjunction with the USA Science and Engineering Festival.
Gernsbacher’s research has for over 40 years investigated the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie human communication. Her research bears both basic science implications and national policy applications. She has published nearly 200 journal articles and invited chapters. She has authored or edited 10 books, including authoring Language Comprehension as Structure Building (Erlbaum, 1990); editing both editions of the Handbook of Psycholinguistics (Academic Press, 1994; Elsevier, 2006); co-editing Coherence in Spontaneous Text (Benjamins, 1995), the Handbook of Discourse Processes (Erlbaum, 2002), and three other books, including Psychology and the Real World: Essays Illustrating Fundamental Contributions to Society (Worth, 2010; 2014). Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control, and several private foundations.