UCSC interim humanities dean William Ladusaw and linguistics professor James McCloskey have been elected as fellows of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA).
The LSA is the major professional society in the United States dedicated to the scientific study of language.
The organization plays a critical role in supporting and disseminating linguistic scholarship, as well as facilitating the application of current research to scientific, educational, and social issues concerning language.
Ladusaw has been a member of the linguistics faculty at UCSC since 1984. He does research in semantics, the study of meaning and its relation to the grammatical structure of languages.
Since 2004, Ladusaw served as vice provost and dean of undergraduate education at UCSC before his appointment this summer as interim dean of the Humanities Division. He was also chair of the Linguistics Department from 1997-99, and provost of Cowell College from 1997-2003.
McCloskey has just completed a four-year term as chair of the Linguistics Department at UCSC. He works in the area of theoretical syntax, seeking to understand the nature of the grammatical systems of human language, focusing on the Irish language (Gaelic).
McCloskey also does research on questions of language attrition and renewal. He joined the faculty at UCSC in 1988.
