Norvin Richards PhD ’97
Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Linguistics,
Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
Norvin Richards PhD ’97 is the Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Linguistics in MIT’s Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He studies theoretical syntax, and also works with endangered languages. He runs the MIT Indigenous Language Initiative, which supports members of communities with endangered languages with training in linguistics. He’s also been involved in the Wôpanâak Language Revival Project since joining MIT’s faculty. His books include “Uttering Trees” and “Contiguity Theory,” both from MIT Press; he also participated in the creation of a dictionary of the Australian language Lardil, published in 1997. Some of his articles are “Reconstructing stress in Wôpanâak,” “Nouns, verbs, and hidden structure in Tagalog,” and “The Principle of Minimal Compliance.”
Richards earned a BA from Cornell University in 1993, and a PhD from MIT in 1997.
