Tom Bever's teaching and research focuses on the foundations of Cognitive and Linguistic Universals. He ordinarily works with a large number of independent study undergraduates, graduate students and colleagues: he works with students in each of the four programs listed above.

Bever's research areas include: sentence comprehension, cerebral asymmetries in humans and animals, constraints on learning in humans and animals, spatial cognition in humans and animals, reading, aesthetics.