Professor Dagmar Divjak

• BA (KULeuven, Belgium), 1995
• MA (KULeuven, Belgium), 1997
• Academic Teacher Training (KULeuven, Belgium), 1997
• Specialization in Polish Language and Culture (UJ Krakow, Poland), 1998
• PhD (KULeuven, Belgium), 2004

Originally from Belgium, Professor Dagmar Divjak completed my Undergraduate and Postgraduate training in Slavonic Philology at the KULeuven, Belgium. Dr Divjak also holds a Degree in Teaching Modern Foreign Languages from the same institution. After spending a year in Poland specializing in Polish Language and Culture (UJ Krakow, Poland), Professor Divjak returned to their Alma Mater to teach Russian at the Undergraduate level. Frustrated by the inadequacy of the grammatical descriptions Professor Divjak could offer their students, they embarked on a PhD in linguistics, funded by the Research Council (FWO Flanders), in 2000.

After obtaining their PhD in 2004, Professor Divjak spent one year at the UNC at Chapel Hill (USA, 2004-2005) as a BAEF Francqui Fellow and one year at the University of Stockholm (Sweden, 2005-2006) as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation (FWO Flanders). 

Then joining the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Sheffield (UK) in September 2006 as a Lecturer in Slavonic Languages and Linguistics and was promoted to Chair in 2018. Dr Divjak has held a wide range of administrative and leadership roles. Notably, as Director of Russian & Polish leading and revamping UG language programs in Russian and Polish and as Director of the Centre for Linguistic Research leading on the establishment of the HumLab, an experimental facility for interdisciplinary research in Arts & Humanities. 

In January 2019 Professor Divjak joined University of Birmingham as Professorial Research Fellow and works with the Out of our Minds team to understand language and make language learning a more natural and rewarding experience.