David Lightfoot (linguist)

Summary

David William Lightfoot is an American linguist and academic. He is an Emeritus Professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. Lightfoot served as assistant director of the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences from 2005 to 2009 and as President of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) from 2010 to 2011. He founded the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland. Lightfoot has been a Guest Professor of linguistics at the Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) since 2016.