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During Fall 2025, the Indigenous Languages Program (INLP) at the Department of Linguistics is welcoming Assistant Professor Dr. Lauren Schneider as the newest member of faculty. Schneider’s research is focused on the morphosyntax of the Salish languages of the Pacific Northwest.

Her methods include working with the Hul’q’umi’num’ community on description, analysis and reclamation of their language. Hul’q’umi’num’ is the Vancouver Island dialect of Halkomelem Salish, which is one of the coastal languages of the Salish Sea region. Schneider is also researching the morphosyntax of a broader range of North American Indigenous languages. 

Earlier this year, Schneider presented a colloquium at SFU titled Corpus-informed syntax: Exploring Hul’q’umi’num’ serial verb constructions during which she discussed her work investigating the word order in Hul’q’umi’num’ Salish serial verb constructions by comparing the results of elicited syntactic data with frequency counts from corpus data. Schneider also recently presented at the Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL). This research talk, which detailed further aspects of her research into the syntax of serial verb constructions in Hul’q’umi’num’, was titled The development of serial verbs in a subset of Salish languages. 

Schneider has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Interim Director of the Native American Languages and Linguistics MA Program () at the University of Arizona. This prestigious program is oriented toward community language activists who wish to train in the kinds of skills and experience needed to work on maintaining, revitalizing and documenting Indigenous languages of North America.