Melissa Bowerman (April 3, 1942 – October 31, 2011) was a leading researcher in the area of language acquisition.
In 1971, Bowerman earned her PhD in social psychology from Harvard University, where she studied under Roger Brown.
She held positions at the University of Kansas from 1970 until 1982, when she joined the Max Planck Institute.
[1][2] Bowerman was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on 1 October 2011.
[3] A volume of papers in her honor, Routes to Language, was published by Psychology Press in 2015.