Steering Committee
Director
Patience L. Epps
Dallas TACA Centennial Professor in the Humanities
Department of Linguistics
Interests: Amazonian languages; linguistic typology; languages in contact
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Members
Danny Law
Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics
Interests: Historical linguistics; language contact Mayan languages; writing systems
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Karolin Obert
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics
Associate Director, Indigenous Languages Initiative (LLILAS)
Interests: Northwest Amazonia (Brazil); language documentation and description; typology of the language of space
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Anthony Woodbury
Jesse H. Jones Professor in Liberal Arts, Department of Linguistics
Interests: Language documentation, description, and revitalization; verbal art; Yupik-Inuit-Unangan languages; Chatino languages
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Founding Director
CILLA was first led by the late Nora C. England, former Dallas TACA Centennial Professor in Humanities in the Department of Linguistics, a specialist in Mayan linguistics, with principal research interests in the analysis and description of contemporary Mayan languages, language identity, language politics, and language ideologies.
Professor England was the founder of and adviser to Oxlajuuj Keej Maya' Ajtz'iib' (OKMA), a Guatemalan Mayan institute devoted to research and teaching on Mayan languages and linguistics. Throughout her career she has been principally concerned with conveying linguistic knowledge to speakers of Mayan languages so that they have the necessary tools for linguistic research and for applying that knowledge to language maintenance and Mayan education. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1993 for her work in Guatemala.