The Dept of Linguistics is pleased to announce that Emily M. Bender has been awarded the Howard and Frances Nostrand Endowed Professorship for 2019-2022. The endowed professorship was established in 2004 by a $500,000 gift from Howard and Frances Nostrand, intended to promote language and culture as a new discipline, and to underscore the need for cultural competence. Prof. Nostrand chaired the UW Department of Romance Languages and Literature from 1939 to 1964, retiring from teaching in 1981.
Prof. Bender is the sixth professor in Linguistics to be selected to be Nostrand Endowed Professor. Previous recipients include Alicia Beckford Wassink, Sharon Hargus, Ellen Kaisse, and Edith Aldridge, who followed Frederick Newmeyer, the first to receive this honor.
Prof. Bender, who came to the Department of Linguistics in 2003, specializes in computational linguistics and serves as Director of the Professional Master’s in Computational Linguistics, in addition to authoring books and articles on linguistics and computational linguistics. Prof. Bender is particularly dedicated to incorporating the linguistic, cultural, and ethical aspects of language use into language technology. More information on Prof. Bender’s publications and research can be found on her website, here.