Office: LBB 124B
Dr. Kristine Stenzel received her PhD. in Linguistics in 2004 from the University of
Colorado and worked for thirteen years as a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Dr. Stenzel’s research has focused primarily on
the description, documentation, and analysis of Kotiria (Wanano) and Wa’ikhana (Piratapuyo),
languages of the East Tukano family, spoken in the Upper Rio Negro region of northwest
Amazonia. Her broader interests include topics in linguistic typology, multilingualism and
small-scale multilingual systems, language contact and change, as well as orthography
development and production of materials for the maintenance and revitalization of endangered
languages. Her publications include A Descriptive Grammar of Kotiria (Wanano), the co-edited
volumes Cultural and Linguistic Interaction in Northwestern Amazonia and On This and Other
Worlds: Voices from Amazonia, as well as articles in the International Journal of American
Linguistics, Studies in Language, Amerindia, Language Documentation & Conservation,
Critical Multilingualism Studies, Language and Communication, Anthropological Linguistics, and
Language Documentation & Description, among others. She has contributed chapters to several
volumes in the Typological Studies in Language series, the Oxford Handbook of Evidentiality,
and the upcoming Clause Chaining in the World’s Languages and Handbook of Amazonian
Languages.
Dr. Stenzel became the PI on the NSF-funded research grant Grammar and multilingual
practices through the lens of everyday interaction in two endangered languages in the East
Tukano family, working from 2017-2020 with CU’s Dr. Barbara Fox and Dr. Nicholas
Williams. She was awarded an NEH Fellowship to further the analysis of data gathered within
this project at CU in 2021-2022. In addition to this ongoing research, she currently works as
Program Coordinator for the Computational Linguistics, Analytics, Search and Informatics
(CLASIC) Professional Master’s Program.