Luisa Maffi, PhD (UC Berkeley, 1994), is co-founder and Director of Terralingua and spearheads Terralingua’s program of work. Trained in linguistics, anthropology, and ethnobiology, Luisa is one of the pioneers of the concept of biocultural diversity. Her interest in the relationships between language, culture, and the environment and between linguistic, cultural, and biological diversity led her to co-found Terralingua in 1996 and to launch the organization’s activities with the interdisciplinary conference “Endangered Languages, Endangered Knowledge, Endangered Environments” (Berkeley, California, USA, 1996).
She was President of Terralingua from 1996 to 2006 and has been its Director since 2007. Since 2010 she has also been an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Social and Applied Sciences at Royal Roads University, as well as an International Fellow of the Explorers Club.
