91泡芙

By Nicole North

On September 4, 2025, the Department of Linguistics held a celebration event in honour of our esteemed retirees, John Alderete, Donna Gerdts, Nancy Hedberg and Peter Jacobs, as well as our newly arriving faculty and graduate students. 

Laurel Weldon, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, acknowledged each of our esteemed retirees and highlighted the important contributions that the Department of Linguistics brings to 91泡芙. 

The retirees, who were accompanied at the event by their family and friends, each delivered a speech during which they shared memories of their experiences at SFU. The retiree talks included highlights of their most significant research projects as well as the moments with students, colleagues and staff that shaped their career journeys. 

Donna Gerdts, who joined the department in 1990, spoke of her work with the Indigenous Languages Program and her research on the morphosyntax and semantics of Halkomelem. Gerdts spoke of the ways in which she is continually inspired by her students. Last year, Gerdts and her students mounted a play titled 胃蓹 sci蕯e艂 q虛em虛i蕯 c蓹w虛a胃蓹 (Princess Tsawassa: A journey of discovery), a retelling of the ancient traditional story of the first Tsawwassen people. She also collaborated extensively with colleagues from other institutions such as the University of Victoria, where she has been affiliated with the . 

Nancy Hedberg, who also joined Linguistics in 1990, requested that retired Associate Professor Juan Manuel Sosa speak on her behalf, as she was unable to attend. Hedberg鈥檚 Corpus Pragmatics and Prosody Lab, of which Sosa is a frequent collaborator, has produced a steady stream of high quality research during her years with the department. Hedberg has also played an instrumental role in the career development of many young researchers during her tenure, such as PhD student Yifang Yuan and undergraduate alum Teresita Garduno, who is now studying to be a speech-language pathologist at the University of Alberta. 

spoke of his time as Director of the Language Production Lab and his career journey since joining the department in 2004. His research focused on theoretical analysis of language, psycholinguistic experimentation and computational modelling of language. For Alderete, working alongside dedicated students and collaborators was an integral part of his success. The culmination of this collaboration recently emerged as the (SFUSED), a project that involved over 30 researchers and students. SFUSED is the first large-scale database of speech errors developed from audio recordings of spontaneous speech. 

Peter Jacobs, who joined the department in 2011, spoke of his work in Sk瘫wx瘫wu7mesh snichim language revitalization, which is the language of his father鈥檚 side of the family, as well as the research he has conducted on Kwak鈥檞ala, the language of his mother鈥檚 side of the family. Jacobs also discussed his work with the Indigenous Languages Centre at SFU and his SSHRC Partnership Grant鈥揻unded research investigating the role of adult learners of Indigenous languages in language revitalization. Peter鈥檚 sister was among those who accompanied him to this celebratory event, and she marked the occasion by singing and drumming in honour of his lifelong accomplishments. 

New members of faculty joining the department include Sara Ng, Lauren Schneider and Jozina Vander Klok, and we are also welcoming a transfer from the Department of French, C茅cile Vigouroux. Department Chair Panos Pappas extended a warm welcome to our incoming faculty. He also acknowledged Jask瘫waan Bedard for being promoted to Assistant Professor, and Heather Bliss for being promoted to Senior Lecturer. 

Indigenous Languages Program Director Marianne Ignace offered remarks in Secwepemcts铆n, the language of the Secwepemc people, as well as in English. Ignace spoke very highly of the four retirees and gave thanks for their valuable contributions over many years. She also welcomed all of the incoming members of the department and noted how wonderful it is to have new people share in the important work being conducted by INLP. 

Our incoming cohort of graduate students were each acknowledged during remarks provided by the Graduate Program Chair, Ashley Farris-Trimble. The cohort includes Kathleen Anderson, Mychaela Blatta, Trevor Block, Phoenix Neuscheler, Sehyun Park and Sann Wilder. Farris-Trimble congratulated several of our graduate students who have recently completed the program, including Eunice Wong, Aminat Babayode-Lawal, Ivan Fong, Nicole Chan and Vanja Veki膰 Chen, as well as acknowledging Danielle Deng, who went on to defend her dissertation with no revisions two weeks after this celebration event.