PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Simon Greenhill

Simon Greenhill is a language researcher who uses Bayesian phylogenetics and databases to study language change. He earned a PhD in 2009, then worked at the University of Auckland and the Australian National University before joining the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in 2016. His work includes TransNewGuinea.org, Grambank and rcldf, which support computational research on language data. As of October 2026, he is an Associate Professor and Co-Director at Auckland, and his research supports computational modelling of Austronesian for future language technologies.

Now at
University of Auckland and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Works
186
Citations
10,610
h-index
50
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2009

    An Auckland PhD and postdoc

    He completes a PhD in 2009 and immediately joins Alexei Drummond’s Computational Evolution Group in Auckland’s Computer Science department as a postdoctoral researcher. He learns Bayesian phylogenetic methods while studying grammatical data.

  2. 2012

    An ANU research fellowship

    In 2012, he receives a Discovery Early Career Research Fellowship and moves to the Department of Linguistics in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University in Canberra.

  3. 2014

    Leading language evolution at ANU

    In 2014, he becomes the named director of the language-evolution component of the ARC’s Dynamics of Language project, one of its four components.

  4. 2015

    TransNewGuinea.org and language data

    In 2015, he publishes the PLOS ONE article introducing TransNewGuinea.org, an online database that collects New Guinea language data in a consistent format for comparative and computational research.

  5. 2016

    Senior Scientist in Jena

    He starts a Senior Scientist role in 2016 in the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena.

  6. 2023

    Introducing Grambank

    In 2023, he and Hedvig Skirgård introduce Grambank, an extensive database of language grammars, in Science Advances. They use it to study grammar across languages and estimate how much grammatical diversity could be lost.

  7. 2026

    An R library for language data

    In 2026, he publishes rcldf, an R package that loads and reads standardized Cross-Linguistic Data Format files from local or remote sources.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate Professor and Co-Director

    As of October 2026, he is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland and Co-Director of the Centre for Computational Evolution. His research supports computational modelling of Austronesian for future language technologies.

Career

  1. Since 2009University of AucklandPostdoctoral researcher
  2. From 2016Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human HistorySenior Scientist
  3. 2015–2026Max Planck Society
  4. 2012–2023Australian National UniversityDiscovery Early Career Research Fellow

Education

  1. University of AucklandPhD

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement2009 · Science · 862 citationsWith Russell Gray
  2. Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family2012 · Science · 801 citationsWith Russell Gray
  3. Evolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals2011 · Nature · 528 citationsWith Russell Gray
  4. Does horizontal transmission invalidate cultural phylogenies?2009 · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 440 citationsWith Russell Gray
  5. Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure2019 · Science · 427 citationsWith Russell Gray

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Max Planck Society. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Max Planck Society. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. People shaping AI work at a median of 3 organizations over a career: 3 for university starters and institute and lab starters, versus 2 for company startersIncludes Max Planck Society. Across 6,853 people shaping AI with a dated work role, we estimate a median of 3 parent organizations over a career (mean 3.6), comparing role groups, starting sectors and starting decades from the 1950s to 2020–2026.
  4. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes Max Planck Society. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Simon Greenhill yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Conversations with Dr Simon Greenhill conversationsinhumanevolution.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. TransNewGuinea.org: An Online Database of New Guinea Languages journals.plos.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Nearly half the world’s language diversity is at risk auckland.ac.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. rcldf: R library for reading CLDF files simon.net.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. About | Simon J. Greenhill simon.net.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Simon J. Greenhill simon.net.nz. Checked 20 October 2026.