Fred Genesee

Fred Genesee is a professor emeritus of psychology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, widely recognized for his research on bilingualism, second language acquisition, and bilingual education. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from McGill University and has taught there since the late 1970s, focusing on bilingual first language acquisition and second language learning in school settings. Over a career spanning nearly five decades, he has become a leading figure in the study of immersion and other alternative forms of bilingual education for both language-minority and language-majority students.

Genesee is coauthor of Dual Language Instruction from A to Z: Practical Guidance for Teachers and Administrators, as well as Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners, and has written numerous articles and more than a dozen books on bilingualism and second language teaching and learning. His work has contributed to major syntheses on educating English language learners, including the National Literacy Panel report Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners and the Center for Research on Education, Excellence, and Diversity report Educating English Language Learners: A Synthesis of Research Evidence. He has received multiple honors for his contributions, notably the Canadian Psychological Association Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology and the 2024 Roger Brown Award for exceptional research and leadership in child language acquisition.[5