The 2024 Graduate Commencement speaker is graduate alumna Adrienne Washington. The Dietrich School's graduate commencement ceremony will take place on April 25 at 11 am in the Fitzgerald Field House. Dr. Washington earned her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Hampton University in 2007, and she earned her Master’s and PhD in Linguistics with a concentration in Sociolinguistics with a Doctoral Level Certificate in African Studies and the Advanced Study Certificate for Latin American & Caribbean Studies from Pitt in 2010 and 2016 respectively. Dr. Washington is the first black recipient of a doctorate from the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Department of Linguistics.
After graduating from Pitt, she became an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Norfolk State University and currently works for West Virginia University as an Assistant Professor of Linguistics. Dr. Washington has been the recipient of over a dozen awards and fellowships including the Ruth Crawford Mitchell Memorial Award (2008), the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (2017-18), and most recently she was a recipient of The American Association of University Women (AAUW) Short-Term Research Publication Grant (2021-22).
Her current research focuses on the linguistic interactions within intersectional communities across various locations of the African Diaspora.
“I look at language as a tool or resource that people use. … Language is another type of practice that people can use to communicate to others how they self-identify or think of themselves.”
