PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Alison Gopnik

Alison Gopnik is a developmental psychologist whose research on children's learning connects cognitive science with AI. She earns a BA in psychology and philosophy at McGill and a doctorate in experimental psychology at Oxford, then joins Berkeley after work at Toronto. Her research covers theory of mind and causal learning, including probabilistic models of how children learn from limited evidence. She receives the 2021 James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award, coauthors a 2023 paper on AI models as cultural technologies, and receives the 2024 Rumelhart Prize. As of October 2026, she is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley.

Works
429
Citations
27,322
h-index
78

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 14 October 2026.

Photo of Alison Gopnik

Timeline

  1. 1975–1980

    From McGill to Oxford

    She earns a BA in psychology and philosophy from McGill in 1975, then a D.Phil. in experimental psychology from Oxford in 1980.

  2. By 1988

    From Toronto to Berkeley

    After working at the University of Toronto, she joins UC Berkeley's faculty in 1988.

  3. 1990s

    Modeling how children learn

    Her research covers theory of mind and causal learning. In the 1990s, she begins using probabilistic causal models to explain how children discover the world from limited evidence.

  4. 2021

    An applied research award

    APS lists her among its 2021 James McKeen Cattell Fellows.

  5. 2023

    AI as a cultural technology

    With Eunice Yiu and Eliza Kosoy, she coauthors a preprint that describes AI models as cultural technologies and efficient imitation engines.

  6. 2024

    A cognitive science prize

    The Cognitive Science Society names her recipient of the David E. Rumelhart Prize.

  7. April 2026

    Care in intelligent systems

    In a Berkeley Talks episode, she argues that creating truly intelligent systems requires attention to care.

  8. As of October 2026

    A Berkeley research role

    She is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley.

Sources and credits

Photo: Kathleen King, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 3.0. Source: commons.wikimedia.org. Cropped to a square and resized. Ask us to remove or replace this photo.

  1. Rumelhart Prize - Cognitive Science Society cognitivesciencesociety.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. Alison Gopnik Research alisongopnik.com. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. The 2021 APS Awards – Association for Psychological Science – APS psychologicalscience.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. [2305.07666] Imitation versus Innovation: What children can do that large language and language-and-vision models cannot (yet)? arxiv.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. Berkeley Talks: Alison Gopnik on why AI is no match for a 4-year-old - Berkeley News news.berkeley.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. Dr. Gopnik — Gopnik Lab gopniklab.berkeley.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.