Koulidobrova selected for Fulbright award to Ecuador

Dr. Elena Vladimirovna Koulidobrova, an associate professor in Linguistics, has been selected for a Fulbright award to Ecuador. Her project will focus on Ecuadorian Sign Language (LSEC) as used by Deaf and hard of hearing Ecuadorians.

In 2024, Koulidobrova was awarded Fulbright Specialist status. This highly competitive program brings U.S. scholars and professionals to partner with universities around the world on short-term, collaborative projects that respond to locally identified needs. These exchanges foster meaningful academic collaboration, strengthen teaching and research, and build lasting institutional partnerships. Typically, host institutions directly request a specialist, and projects undergo an independent competitive review process. In January 2026, the project “Narratives in Ecuadorian Sign Languages,” with Dr. Koulidobrova as the requested specialist, was awarded.

Over several weeks, Dr. Koulidobrova will train and directly support Deaf community members—primarily undergraduate students—in developing and implementing protocols for narrative elicitation. Initiated by the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, the project aims to document individual and shared experiences of Deaf community members in Ecuador. The resulting data will provide crucial insights into (socio)linguistic variation in LSEC and equip key stakeholders with materials to inform and support language policy development in Ecuador.