Profile of the Chief-Editor

Imelda Icheji Lawrence Udoh, FLAN, FNAL
Professor of Linguistics & Nigerian Languages
Address: Department of Linguistics & Nigerian Languages, University of Uyo, Nigeria
Email: imeldaudoh@uniuyo.edu.ng
Website: www.imeldaudoh.com.ng
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8235-3015

Imelda Icheji Lawrence Udoh received her BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Calabar in 1983, 1986, and 1998.  She works in the Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages, University of Uyo, where she is a professor. She has served in many administrative capacities within the university like Head of Department, Vice Dean, Deputy Director, as well as many committees. She has participated in several research projects. The languages she has worked on include Leggbó, Anaañ, Iko, Nkari, Ibibio, Uda; and her work on these languages has yielded over seventy publications including articles in journals (in Nigeria, Europe, Asia, and America). She has a passion for the minority languages of Nigeria, especially Leggbó, and other Upper Cross languages of the Cross River State.

Prof. Udoh has been a Research Visitor to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 1996, a Research Scholar to the University College, London in 1999, a Post-Doctoral Visiting Scholar on sabbatical to the University of California, Berkeley, from 2001-2002, Professor on sabbatical to University of Calabar, from 2008-2009, 2016-2017. She has done extensive research in Descriptive and Documentary Linguistics on the languages of the Upper and Lower Cross River spoken in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States of Nigeria, through several projects like: the Electronic Metastructure for Endangered Language Data (E-MELD) housed in Michigan State University, of which she is an Advisor (since 2005);  the Abidjan-Bielefeld-Uyo Introduction to Language Documentation (ABUILD) Project; the Lower Cross Languages Project (LCLP), of which she is the Chair, the Nigerian Languages Project (NLP), which she coordinates; and the Prime Minister’s Initiative 2 Connect Delivery Project Funded by the British Council for 2011, of which she was the Nigerian Co-Lead Partner.

Professor Udoh is on the editorial board of several local, national, and international journals, where she has peer-reviewed articles for publication.  She was the Chief Editor of the USEM Journal of Languages, Linguistics and Literature between 2005 and 2019. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Nigerian Languages Project (JNLP), as well as a Guest Editor of the Journal of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (JOLAN). She is also the Chief Editor of Fruities' Publications Ltd, which provides editorial services as well as publishes books, magazines, and journals.

Professor Udoh was a member of the Governing Council of the University of Uyo, where she represented the Senate of the University from 2015 – 2017. She is also a pioneering member of the Governing Council of the Ritman University, Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, from 2015 – to date. She is currently a member of the Governing Council of the National Institute of Nigerian Languages (NINLAN), as well a member of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) Board from 2021.

Professor Udoh is an activist. As a language activist, she works on Nigerian languages and she coordinates a project on the languages of Nigeria, which provides a platform for interaction for language specialists and students, language speakers, funders, and other language stakeholders – the Nigerian Languages Project (NLP). As a woman activist, she attends to issues of women, and she chairs a foundation and provides a platform for widows to fruit again in the desert place they find themselves – the Fruitful Widows’ Initiative (FWI).

Professor Udoh has taken part in the Nigerian Universities Commission’s accreditation exercise to several universities in Nigeria, where she has served as Chairman and Member to certify several programmes, including the University of Ibadan, University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, University of Port Harcourt, etc.

Professor Udoh is a member of many professional associations like the West African Linguistics Society (WALS), the Reading Association of Nigeria (RAN), the Nigerian Language Teachers’ Association (ANLAT), the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (LAN), of which she was Secretary from 2004-2008, Vice President from 2016-2021, and the current President 2021 – to date. She is a DAAD alumnus; a Fellow of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (FLAN); a life member, as well as a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (FNAL).