Rate My Professor Rodriguez Louro

Celeste Rodriguez Louro is Associate Professor of Linguistics in the School of Social Sciences at The University of Western Australia, where she is Founder and Director of the Language Lab. She earned her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Melbourne in 2009 with a thesis titled 'Perfect evolution and change: A sociolinguistic study of Preterit and Present Perfect usage in contemporary and earlier Argentina,' and holds an MA in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research specializes in sociolinguistics, language variation and change, participatory methods, and inclusive language technologies, with a focus on Australian Aboriginal English, grammaticalization, quotation, epistemic verbs, and the role of language in AI systems. She leads externally funded projects such as 'Aboriginal English Voices' in partnership with Google Australia, aimed at developing speech technologies for First Nations communities, and serves as an Aboriginal English consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary and the Australian National Dictionary.

Rodriguez Louro has held key leadership roles including Chair of Linguistics, Deputy Chair of UWA's Generative AI Think Tank, Vice-President and Secretary of the Australian Linguistic Society, and organizer of multiple conferences such as the Language Variation and Change Australia series and the 2026 Australian Linguistic Society Conference. Her major awards and fellowships include the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for 'Aboriginal English in the global city: Minorities and language change' (2018-2022), the 2025 International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE) Outreach Prize, the 2024 UWA School of Social Sciences Mid-career Researcher Award, the 2023 Talkley Award, and a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls College, University of Oxford (2026). Key publications encompass 'Beyond the syntax of the null subject parameter' (2006), 'Quotatives down under: Be like in cross-generational Australian English speech' (2013), 'Outliers, impact, and rationalization in linguistic change' (2016), 'Australian Aboriginal English: linguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives' (2021), and 'Working together: Sociolinguistic research in urban Aboriginal Australia' (2021). She created and hosted the award-winning radio segment Language Lab on RTRFM, and her public engagement pieces on language, inclusion, and technology have garnered over 77 million views since early 2025.