Jacqueline Urla

Jacqueline Urla is professor of anthropology at UMass Amherst. Her research has primarily focused on activism to protect minority languages in Europe, with a special focus on the Basque Country of Northern Spain. She is a past scholar in residence of the School of Advanced Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the recipient of fellowships from the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Social Science Research Council. Urla has been a faculty member at UMass Amherst since 1990 and has held various leadership roles as chair of anthropology, director of the modern European studies program, and interim-director of the interdepartmental film studies program, and she currently directs the Douglass Chair in Basque cultural studies. She became dean of the Graduate School in January 2021.