Ofelia Zepeda - Professor


M.A (1981), Ph.D. (1984), University of Arizona

Ofelia Zepeda, Ph.D. in Linguistics, Regents Professor of Linguistics and recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship for her work in American Indian language education, maintenance and recovery, currently the Poet Laureate for the city of Tucson.

Dr. Zepeda is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation of southern Arizona, born and raised in Stanfield, Arizona. She is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and interdisciplinary faculty in The American Indian Studies Program and the program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching. Dr.Zepeda's area of teaching and research include, introduction to Tohono O'odham, the structure of the Tohono O'odham language, lexicography for Native American Languages, survey of Native American Languages, and Native American literature. Dr. Zepeda published the first teaching grammar of O'odham , A Tohono O'odham Grammar . She has published numerous articles on topics on the status of Native American languages, language policy and planning, Native American linguistics and education.

Dr. Zepeda is a co-founder of the American Indian Language Development Institute (AILDI). Dr. Zepeda is the director of AILDI, a residential Institute with an international reputation in teacher preparation for educators of Native American students.

Additionally, Dr. Zepeda is the series editor of Sun Tracks, a book series publishing Native American writers, published by the University of Arizona Press. She is a published poet and essayist writing in Tohono O'odham and English. Dr. Zepeda has two books of poetry, Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert and Jewed I-hoi/Earth Movements, and is the co-editor of Home Place s a celebration of twenty years of publication of the Sun Tracks series. Her poetry has also appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including, Reinventing the Enemy's Language edited by Joy Harjo and Gloria Bird, Fever Dreams, edited by Leilani Wright and James Cervantes, and in Purpose as Place: Poetry of the Western States, edited by Martha Ronk and Paul Vangelista.