Dr Kellen Parker Van Dam

Associate Academic Director

Dr. Kellen Parker van Dam is a linguist specializing in the languages of the Indo-Burmese border region, working closely with members of the Tangsa, Nocte, Wancho and Khiamniungan communities since 2015. He began working with Trans-Himalayan speaking communities in 2009 with the documentation of oral literature in China & Taiwan.

He completed his MA in linguistics in 2014 at National Tsing Hua University, and his PhD in 2018 at La Trobe University, and continues work on documentation and historical linguistics.

He is currently managing editor of Languages and Peoples of the Eastern Himalayan Region, a regular special issue of the journal Himalayan Linguistics. Dr. van Dam has been involved in Training and Resources for Indigenous Community Linguists since 2019. He is an Assistant Professor in the Chair for Multilingual Computational Linguistics at the University of Passau in Germany.