Stefanie Ramos Bierge
Linguistics | Ecology | Education | Community work
​
Linguist, Educator & Diversity advocate
I am a researcher interested in linguistics, ecology, and education. My primary goal is to use these fields to do community work that leads to social change.
I strongly believe that interdisciplinary collaboration and the implementation of the appropriate strategies lead to the preservation of cultural, linguistic, and biological diversity as well as the creation of social equity.
I am a Postdoctoral Associate (2022-2025) at the New York Botanical Garden for a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and directed by Dr. Alex McAlvay. This project documents the interaction of language and ecology in wixárika (Uto-Aztecan).
​
I have a Master's degree and Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Master’s degree in Linguistics from Universidad de Sonora (México), and a Bachelor´s degree in Language teaching from Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (México) .
​
I have over 20 years of teaching experience that derives from working in different cultural settings in Mexico and the United States.
Motivation
My interest in languages was motivated by the diversity found in my native country, Mexico. Mexico is well known for its 11 different language families which include 68 languages and 364 dialectal variations, in addition to Spanish. Growing up surrounded by this cultural and linguistic richness, I developed interest in learning more about these languages. However, most of them are endangered. The cumulative effect of escalating stigmatization, social exclusion, lack of available (medical, legal, education) resources in their language, and economic pressure has led these communities to abandon their languages gradually. This panorama guided me to partake in the efforts of preserving these languages and cultures, and most importantly, in creating social equity.
