Establishing the profile initiative Linguistic DiversityNew Alexander von Humboldt Professorship at Universität Hamburg

Photo: Macquarie University

Ingrid Piller, professor of applied linguistics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia will head the research center Literacy in Diversity Settings (LiDS)

Based in the Faculty of Education, LiDS is set to become an interdisciplinary, cross-faculty research center and form the nucleus of the profile initiative Linguistic Diversity at Universität Hamburg.

Piller’s research focuses on intercultural communication, language acquisition, and multilingualism in the context of migration and globalization. She is currently a distinguished professor at Macquarie University, a distinction awarded to researchers who are deemed among the top experts in their field. In 2018, she received the Anneliese Maier Research Award worth €250,000 from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and has already completed several research stays and served as visiting professor at Universität Hamburg.

“This is truly wonderful and a huge international success for the University of Excellence—University of Hamburg and the Faculty of Education. Prof. Ingrid Piller is an exceptional researcher, and the Alexander von Humboldt professorship is one of the greatest awards in German academia. She has continued to implement new methods and approaches in her research and contributed to paradigm shifts in the field of multilingualism. Together with her team, Prof. Piller will enrich our Language Diversity profile initiative with new international dimensions,” said Prof. Dr. Hauke Heekeren, University of Hamburg president.

The Alexander von Humboldt Professorships are granted by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. These professorships recognize leading world researchers in all disciplines who are working abroad and who are nominated by the respective universities. The award also gives the universities themselves an opportunity to offer international experts competitive conditions and long-term prospects for their work in Germany as well as to sharpen their profiles. Piller’s appointment means that Universität Hamburg now has a total of 4 Alexander von Humboldt Professorships. Learn more about Piller’s research on the portal for sociolinguistics she set up (in English): Language on the Move.

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