Rebecca Grollemund was recently nominated and awarded the Undergraduate Mentor of the Year Award during the Show Me Research Week. 

Grollemund's research specialization is historical linguistics; her work investigates the origins of the Bantu language family in sub-Saharan Africa. Working with scholars in Europe and North America, Grollemund’s interdisciplinary, collaborative research uses cutting-edge methods and diverse data types to study ancient migrations, linguistic contact, and language change. 

Grollemund has mentored many students at Mizzou. Many of these students have worked on projects with Grollemund over multiple academic years. Grollemund has been highly effective in recruiting students enrolled in her courses to participate in research, including her introductory course LINGST 1060 Human Language, her intermediate level course LINGST 3620 Languages of the World, and her advanced course LINGST 4420 Historical Linguistics. 

What is especially impressive about Grollemund’s mentorship of students is that so often she works with students who have no technical expertise or minimal technical expertise in linguistics or historical linguistics, and within one or two semesters, she has created a learning environment that provides them with the training to conduct state-of-the-art research. When students are able to work with Grollemund over more than one year, they are able to reach quite advanced levels in their research, developing work that is on par with what graduate students at other institutions would be doing in terms of its contribution to the field.