On September 10, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences celebrated the investiture of Silvina Montrul as Marjorie Roberts Professor in Liberal Arts & Sciences. The Marjorie Roberts Professorship in Liberal Arts & Sciences recognizes academic excellence along with community and inclusivity. It was established after the passing of Illinois alumna Marjorie Roberts of Edison Park, Illinois. She received her bachelor’s degree from U of I in 1924.
Read the news highlight from the College of LAS here.
Professor Montrul is a leading figure in understanding second language acquisition, the "most impactful scholar of her generation worldwide," in the words of Colin Philips, distinguished scholar-teacher and director of the Language Science Center at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses primarily on language acquisition, language loss, and language change in bilingual individuals. Montrul is the former head of the Department of Spanish & Portuguese, director of the Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Lab, and the author of six books and hundreds of journal articles on second language acquisition, bilingualism, and heritage languages. She also has an appointment in the Department of Linguistics. Her latest book, Native Speakers, Interrupted: Differential Object Marking and Language Change in Heritage Languages (Cambridge UP, 2022), received the L. Bloomfield Award from the Linguistics Society of America in 2023.
