The Department is proud to announce the promotion of Dr. Maria Kristina Gallego and Dr. Jem Javier to associate professor status.

Dr. Gallego completed her doctoral studies at the Australian National University with her dissertation titled “The Stratigraphy of a Community: 150 Years of Language Contact and Change in Babuyan Claro, Philippines.” Some of Dr. Gallego’s publications include “The Structural Consequences of Lexical Transfer in Ibatan,” which was published as a chapter in the book “Traces of Contact in the Lexicon: Austronesian and Papuan Studies” by Brill in 2023, and “Directional Systems in Philippine Languages” published in Oceanic Linguistics in 2018.  She also co-wrote a study published in the Diachronica journal titled “Is Malayo-Polynesian a Primary Branch of Austronesian? A View from Morphosyntax.” Dr. Gallego currently heads the Department as its chair and is also currently leading an extension project on developing a community-led documentation of the Bugkalot language.

Dr. Javier obtained his Ph.D. in Linguistics under the Department with his doctoral dissertation titled “Semantik na Gramar ng Filipino.” Among his most recent publications are “Sosyolinggwistikong Pagsusuri sa Lexical Choice ng Kontemporaryong Gamit ng Wikang Filipino,” which was published as part of the festschrift for Dr. Consuelo J. Paz in 2022, and the journal article “Komparatibong Pagsusuri ng Applicative/Causative Marking ng Bahasa Indonesia at Morphological Focus Marking sa Tagalog” published in Daluyan in 2021. He also co-wrote the chapter “Tagalog Linguistics: Historical Development and Theoretical Trends” with Assistant Professor Elsie Marie Or in The Routledge Handbook of Asian Linguistics in 2023, and the chapter titled “The Biblical, the Moral, and the Legal: Juxtaposing Filipino/Tagalog Translations of Biblical Passages and Local Views on Sex, Gender, and Sexuality,” co-written with Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Madilene Landicho and published by Routledge. He is currently serving as the CSSP Graduate Program Office coordinator and is actively involved in producing episodes for the CSSP Folklore Studies podcast, “Tuko Chronicles.”

Both associate professors were also recently awarded the 2023 Centennial Faculty Grant.

Pagbati, Assoc. Prof. Gallego at Assoc. Prof. Javier!

Published by UP Department of Linguistics