Welcome to the new Department Chair!

Asst. Prof. Maria Kristina Gallego will be taking over the position of Department Chair from Asst. Prof. Jem Javier starting this August 2022.

Asst. Prof. Javier served as the Department’s Chair from January 2019 to July 2022. During his term, Javier took on the challenging task of shepherding the Department through the COVID-19 pandemic and the sudden transition to remote and online delivery of classes. He convened the first completely online Philippine Linguistics Congress in 2021 and supported the establishment of the Consuelo J. Paz Lecture Series, the Philippine Indigenous Languages Lecture Series, the Linguistics Scholarship and Wellness Fund, and the Ernesto Cubar Research Grant. Javier also worked together with key members of the Department in revamping the Department’s website, creating the online database of the proceedings from the past Philippine Linguistics Congresses, and a database for the publications of the members of the faculty from the 1990s onwards. It was also during Javier’s term that the Department signed memoranda of agreement with several institutions, including Yonsei University in South Korea and the Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts in Japan.

Asst. Prof. Gallego will pick up the work that the Department began under the terms of Javier and the other previous chairs. Gallego is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University whose dissertation is on the documentation of the Ibatan language in Babuyan Claro. She will be leading the Department in the celebration of its 100th founding anniversary and ushering the new century of Philippine linguistics at the Department.