Neil Cohn

Neil Cohn is a cognitive scientist best known for his pioneering research on comics, drawing, multimodality, and language. The author of 100+ academic papers, 5 books, and 2 graphic novels, he is also the co-creator of several emoji including the melting face 🫠, dotted line face 🫥, and fight cloud. His recent graphic novel Speaking in Pictures (2026) provides an accessible introduction to his research on the relationship between the structure and cognition of graphic communication and language. He is an Associate Professor of Cognition and Communication at Tilburg University in The Netherlands, and his work can be found online at www.visuallanguagelab.com.