embleton


Sheila M Embleton

Photo of Sheila M Embleton

Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics

Professor
Distinguished Research Professor
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Office: Ross Building, S580
Phone: (416)736-2100 Ext: 88849
Email: embleton@yorku.ca

Attached CV

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Dr. Sheila Embleton pursues an internationally recognized research agenda in multiple fields of linguistics but is also well known for contributions to the study of post-secondary education. She holds the title of Distinguished Research Professor in Linguistics at York University, where from 2000 to 2009 she served as Vice-President Academic (VP-Academic & Provost in 2008-09). In January 2023, Dr. Embleton became interim President of Laurentian University / Université Laurentienne in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Embleton’s academic background and graduate work includes both mathematics (BSc 1975, MSc 1976, U of Toronto) and linguistics (PhD 1981, U of Toronto). Her formal training also encompasses four certificates granted by European institutions: linguistics, French (Université de Poitiers, 1974); German (Österreichisch-Amerikanische Gesellschaft, 1976); linguistics (Universität Salzburg, 1977); and Finnish (Finnish Ministry of Education, 1988). Her areas of language specialization include English, German, Germanic, French, Romance, Russian, Slavic, Finnish and Finno-Ugric. A native speaker of English, she has excellent command of French and German, good command of Russian, moderate command of Spanish, Finnish, and Swedish, and basic command of Italian. Her reading knowledge extends to Norwegian, Danish, Latin, Portuguese, Catalan, Romanian, Estonian, Dutch, and several Slavic languages.

In linguistics, Dr. Embleton's substantial scholarly output as author or editor ranges through historical linguistics and language change, mathematical/statistical methods in linguistics, sociolinguistics, dialectology, onomastics, Finnish literature, and women and language. She is best known for applications of mathematical and statistical methods to linguistic problems broadly, with early work mostly in methods of tree reconstruction for families of related languages. Among Dr. Embleton’s most prominent publications is the enduring and still much-cited Statistics in Historical Linguistics (1986). Two recent volumes she co-edited are Language and Text: Data, Models, Information, Applications (2021) and Quantitative Approaches to Universality and Individuality in Language (2022). Her current linguistics research, which has been supported by a series of grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), focuses predominantly on dialectometry (statistical methods applied to dialect study), with particular application to British, Finnish, and Romanian dialects. Over the past several decades, Dr. Embleton’s distinguished contributions in linguistics have been acknowledged in Canada and abroad. She has held the positions of Visiting Professor, Vilém Mathesius Centre, Charles University, Prague and Visiting Scholar, Department of Linguistics, University of California at Los Angeles (twice). In addition, she has been named: Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; Invited Member, Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura (Finnish Literature Society); Knight First Class of the Order of the White Rose of Finland; Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA; London, UK); Fellow of the Bahamas Historical Society; and Continuing Senior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto.

During her vice-presidency at York, Dr. Embleton began to investigate post-secondary education through a researcher’s lens. She is interested in many policy and practical issues related to contemporary post-secondary education, both in Canada and internationally, especially in the European Union and India, research that has also been supported by SSHRC. She is equally a tireless advocate both for the internationalization of education and for access to higher education, based on merit rather than social, financial, or geographical factors. In 2005, the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) presented her with its Internationalization Leadership Award. As a specialist of post-secondary education, she has pursued two commissioned reports for CBIE, and also studied such specific topics as: the significance of scholarships in attracting international students to Canada; post-secondary collaborations between Canada and India; national and international policy in higher education; comparison of the objectives of international students versus those of the Canadian post-secondary institutions trying to attract them; and comparison of the internationalization of Chinese and Indian higher education. As part of her commitment to the internationalization of post-secondary education, Dr. Embleton led York’s India Strategy from 2005-09, and was closely involved in the preparation, negotiation, and approvals for York University’s Schulich School of Business MBA program in India. In 2011, the university recognized her with its Award for Outstanding Contribution to Internationalization. In addition, Dr. Embleton has represented York at the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute since 2001, and between 2008 and 2010 served consecutively as the Institute’s vice-president and president, during which time she led a strategic planning process. In general, Dr. Embleton has been involved in many aspects of academic relations between Canada and India, including visiting dozens of Indian universities, institutes, and government ministries. She frequently lectures, writes for the media, and leads panels on the rapidly evolving higher education scene in India.

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ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7245-1845

Degrees

Ph.D., Linguistics, University of Toronto
M.Sc., Mathematics & Statistics, University of Toronto
B.Sc., Mathematics & Linguistics, University of Toronto

Appointments

Faculty of Graduate Studies

Professional Leadership

Dr. Embleton has taken on prominent leadership roles throughout her career, positions which have allowed her to be an advocate for positive change within the institutions and organizations with which she has affiliated herself. In certain roles, she has influenced government policy. She has been an on-site assessor, in both academic and governance matters, at several universities across Canada, for the Romanian Research Assessment Exercise, and twice for the German Excellence Initiative. While Chief Steward of the York University Faculty Association from 2011 to 2022, she provided both grievance and equity training for the Canadian Association of University Teachers at many Canadian universities, and is the most recent winner of CAUT’s Bernice Schrank Award.

In January 2023, Dr. Embleton became Interim President, Laurentian University / Université Laurentienne. In this position, she is drawing on experience acquired during her years in academic administration at York University where she was Vice-President Academic / Academic & Provost from 2000 to 2009, having previously been Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1994 to 2000. While a university vice-president, she also chaired the Ontario Council of Academic Vice-Presidents (OCAV) from 2004 to 2008 and the National Vice-Presidents Academic Council from 2006 to 2007. As Chair of OCAV, she conceived and established the Ontario-Maharashtra-Goa exchange program, including securing provincial government funding for it. She is past President of the Canada India Education Council and past chair of CIEC’s Academic Relations Committee. Dr. Embleton also participated in advising and planning for the academic portions of visits to India by Ontario Premiers Dalton McGuinty (Jan 2007, Dec 2009) and Kathleen Wynne (Feb 2016), Québec Premier Jean Charest (Feb 2010), BC Premier Christy Clark (Nov 2011), and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Nov 2009, Nov 2012). She has been a member of Global Affairs Canada’s Focus India, Focus China and Focus Brazil groups, and a member of the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement Joint Study Group Advisory Committee.

Dr. Embleton is equally well known as a research leader. Since becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2010, she has served on the Society’s executive as Secretary (2015-2021), and most recently became President of its Academy of Arts and Humanities. Her enduring commitment to mathematics and wide-ranging interests in linguistics have seen her take on executive roles in/directorships of: the American Name Society, the Canadian Friends of Finland Education Foundation, the Canadian Society for the Study of Names, the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, the Linguistic Association of Canada and the US (LACUS), and the International Quantitative Linguistics Association. She is currently a member of the Ontario Geographical Names Board (Chair from June 2018, provincial appointment), and formerly held board positions with MITACS (Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems), Mprime Networks, the Canadian Bureau for International Education, TOEFL (Princeton, NJ), the TOEFL Committee of Examiners, and the Board of the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences (Chair 2015-18).

Dr. Embleton’s research leadership also encompasses considerable editorial contributions. In addition to co-editing multiple works, she is a member of the editorial boards of numerous journals and book series, many of them the foremost in her fields. For instance, with the journal Diachronica she held the position of Managing Editor from 1988-91, and then became Associate Editor, a role in which she continues to the present. For Word, she has been Review Editor (1989-2013), a member of its Editorial Board (1989-2015), and in 2022 became a member of its Advisory Editorial Board. She also enjoyed a longstanding editorial affiliation with the Journal of Finnish Studies, serving as both its Review Editor and a member of it Editorial Board from 1996 to 2021. In 2021, Linguistics and Literature Review recognized Dr. Embleton with the honorary title of Chief Editor.

Community Contributions

Over the course of her career, Dr. Embleton has embraced opportunities to share her expertise with communities outside the academy, offering her general knowledge as an educator or her specific expertise in one of her areas of research engagement. In this spirit, she has served as judge for a student writing competition sponsored by Canada Post and an Earth Day scholarship program organized by Toyota. When a Toronto radio station needed a phonetics coach for its radio actors, Dr. Embleton took on the role. For a police discipline hearing, she stood as expert witness. In 2017, she participated in an Ada Lovelace Day held at the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences, contributing to a panel about "Emerging Research Opportunities, Diversity, and Inclusion."

Since the mid-1980s, Dr. Embleton has interacted with media on several continents over one hundred times about different aspects of her research. The media has shown particular fascination for her linguistic work related to names and naming, an area of investigation in which Dr. Embleton has explored names associated with people from various countries or cultural groups, places located around the globe, and even the naming of aircrafts and wineries. For organizations like Bnai Brith (Markham-Unionville Chapter) and the Ontario Genealogical Society, Dr. Embleton has given talks on the subject of women and practices around their names, including historical insight into the retention of maiden names. She has been equally pleased to share her knowledge of Scandinavian languages and cultures with seniors’ organizations, and speak before the Canadian Friends of Finland on “The Role of English in Contemporary Finland” (2002).

Research Interests

Linguistics , Post-secondary Education