D. Kimbrough Oller is Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence at the University of Memphis. He received his Ph.D. in Psycholinguistics in 1971 from the University of Texas at Austin. Prof. Oller's research focuses on vocal development and acquisition of spoken language. In over 230 articles and books his work addresses infant vocalizations, early speech production, multilingualism, and evolution of language. His bilingualism research includes Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children (edited by D. K. Oller and R. E. Eilers), from Multilingual Matters (2002). His research in evolution and development of language includes The Emergence of the Speech Capacity (2000, Erlbaum), The Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach (edited by D. K. Oller and U. Griebel, MIT Press, 2004), Evolution of Communicative Flexibility: Complexity, Creativity, and Adaptability in Human and Animal Communication (edited by D. K. Oller and U. Griebel, MIT Press, 2008), and in a 2016 volume for Topics in Cognitive Science, New Frontiers in Language Evolution and Development (edited by D. K. Oller, R. Dale, and U. Griebel). Oller's research has been funded since the 1970's by the National Institutes of Health.

Amongst his many awards and recognition, include: Award for distinguished contributions - Council for Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders (2003), Fellow of ASHA - American Speech-Language Hearing Association (2004), Member Scientific Advisory Board - LENA Research Foundation, Boulder, Colarado (2005-present), The Honors of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, the highest honor of the Association (2013), The University of Memphis Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for Research (2018), Lifetime Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2022).