Juan Uriagereka

Lead Fellow: Encoding & Decoding

  • Group:Faculty

Juan Uriagereka

Lead Fellow: Encoding & Decoding

I am interested in the biolinguistics program, from various perspectives. I was trained as a syntactician (obtaining a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut), although my previous studies had not concentrated on linguistics. It is through my earlier interests in economics and biology that I engaged in architectural and foundational aspects of language. 
 
Since joining the university in 1989, I have published a dozen books and many articles/chapters. I have (co-)directed 20 dissertations, am co-directing three others at UMD, and have participated in the graduate committees of some seventy graduate students. As Associate Provost for Faculty (2010-2015), I spearheaded family-friendly policies, regularized the status of professional-track faculty, organized faculty leadership forums, and updated APT policies.
 
My current books include a multidisciplinary project to formulate language structures as linear algebra operators, and two books in progress: one on code-switching, co-authored with Jeff MacSwan for Cambridge University Press, and one on dependent clauses, co-authored with Ángel Gallego for John Benjamins. 

I am also very interested in informing academic debate and improving the lives and activities of academics, particularly inasmuch as this includes under-represented minorities. In my view, broadly-construed diversity is essential to the human condition, and very directly responsible for breakthroughs in the arts and sciences.