Prof. Justyna Olko

photo: A.Zawada/PAP

Justyna Olko is professor in the Faculty of “Artes Liberales” at the University of Warsaw and director of its Center for Research and Practice in Cultural Continuity. She specializes in ethnohistory, sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, language endangerment and revitalization as well as decolonizing research practices, with a special focus on Nahua language and culture. Author of Insignia of Rank in the Nahua World (University Press of Colorado, 2014), co-editor and co-author of Dialogue with Europe, Dialogue with the Past. Colonial Nahua and Quechua Elites in Their Own Words (University Press of Colorado & University of Utah, 2018), co-author of Loans in Colonial and Modern Nahuatl. A Contextual Dictionary (Mouton de Gruyter, 2020), and co-editor (with Julia Sallabank) and co-author of Revitalizing Endangered Languages. A Practical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2021). A recipient of Starting and Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council (Europe and America in Contact, 2012-2017; Consolidator Grant: Multilingual worlds – neglected histories, 2022-2027) and the Team grant from the Foundation for Polish Science (2017-2022). Justyna Olko is a member of the Polish National Science Center Council (2018-2022) and was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2013), as well as a Burgen Fellowship by the Academia Europaea (2013). In 2020 she became a winner of the Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year in social sciences and humanities for “Breaking the walls between Academy and local communities in favour of linguistic diversity”. More information at www.jolko.al.uw.edu.pl.