About
Pilar Pinar is a Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Gallaudet University, part of the Language, Education, and Culture school. She specializes in bilingualism, deaf education, and second language acquisition with a focus on Spanish and American Sign Language (ASL) bilingual populations. Her research explores cognitive aspects of bilingualism, including lexical access, cross-language activation, and reading comprehension in deaf readers.
- Serves as Spanish Program Coordinator and Academic Advisor
- Leads the International Studies Program
- Former Faculty Leader for LSE Study Abroad in Spain (2002)
- Editorial roles include Co-Editor of Sign Language Studies (2021–present) and Board Member of Gallaudet University Press
Research interests emphasize bilingual processing in deaf populations, including studies on eye movement patterns during reading, syntactic parsing in ASL-English bilinguals, and cultural identity among DHH Latine students. She has secured grants from NIH and Gallaudet’s Research Institute to investigate deaf literacy and perceptual span dynamics.
Teaching includes foundational Spanish courses (SPA-111/112), advanced language studies, and interdisciplinary courses like Comparing Multicultural Perspectives. Her advising spans over 30 undergraduate students annually, with active roles on doctoral committees in Linguistics and Educational Neuroscience.
Publications bridge cognitive science and deaf education, with contributions to Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education and Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. Her work highlights unique challenges and strengths of bilingual deaf populations in language processing and education.