Domnita Dumitrescu

2019 AATSP Lifetime Achievement Award 

A distinguished linguist and scholar, Dr. Domnita Dumitrescu holds the esteemed title of Professor Emerita at California State University—Los Angeles where she taught for 30 years and received the President Distinguished Professor Award in 2008. She is an accomplished scholar and translator, and a leader in the linguistics community. Domnita has received numerous awards for her work in Spanish pragmatics, socio-pragmatics of Spanish, comparative studies between Spanish and Romanian, and on Spanish in the USA.

Domnita started her career as a language educator in 1966 in her native Romania. Later, Domnita came to the United States, becoming a full professor in 1995.  She was a Fulbright scholar in Argentina in 1993.    

One of the first academic associations that Domnita joined upon her arrival in California was the AATSP where she served as president of the Southern California Chapter. Soon after, the AATSP named Domnita the College & University Level Teacher of the Year for 2000! She served later on the Executive Council and was an associate editor of Hispania in charge of the section Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian World. For almost nine years now, Domnita has served as the Book/Media Editor for Hispania and she continues to be a strong and dedicated supporter of the organization

Domnita has authored or co-author 10 books, 64 book chapters or encyclopedic volumes, 75 journal articles, and has given over 45 presentations and workshops at AATSP conferences over the past 35 years, and over 100 at other professional national and international meetings.  She worked closely with the Hispanic Honor Society Sigma Delta Pi, and was named Honorary President of this organization in 2010.

In 2013, Domnita was elected full member of the North American Academy of the Spanish language (ANLE) and corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy. She is the ANLE delegate to the Inter-Academic Commission of the ASALE for the 24^th edition of the dictionary of the Spanish language. She was named a Lifetime Achiever by Marquis Who’s Who  in 2017.

To honor her lifetime of dedication to Hispanic linguistics, her pioneering spirit in academia, and her 35 years of support and outstanding contributions to the AATSP, Dr. Domnita Dumitrescu was awarded the AATSP’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Click here to go back to the awards page.