Marjo van Koppen is a senior researcher at the Meertens Institute (KNAW) in the Variational Linguistics research group and professor of Language Variation of Dutch at Utrecht University. In addition to her research into variation in human language, she also conducts research into communication between humans and animals, in particular cows and cats.

Marjo van Koppen’s research into human-animal communication adds to Leonie Cornips’ research into cow language. She and Leonie are jointly investigating the question of how linguists interpret this communication, and what that communication tells us about the cognitive and social language skills of animal and human language. Marjo and Leonie conduct this research on different animal species, domesticated animals such as cows, pigs and cats, and also extend the research to non-domesticated, but cared-for animals such as zoo animals.