Prof. Giuseppe Longobardi is a distinguished linguist and academic, whose research encompasses theoretical, comparative, and historical syntax, with a particular focus on Romance, Germanic, and Classical languages; its main domains are parameter theory, the syntax/reference interface, diachronic and phylogenetic linguistics, and the intersection of linguistics with population genetics. He is renowned for developing the Parametric Comparison Method, which integrates generative grammatical principles with analytic philosophy and historical-comparative explanations. He served as the Principal Investigator of the large interdisciplinary ERC Advanced Grant 'Meeting Darwin's Last Challenge' (2012-2018) at the University of York.
In the course of his career, Prof. Longobardi has held various academic positions, including Assistant Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore (1981–1987), Associate Professor at the University of Venice (1987–1994), and Professor at the University of Trieste (1997–2017). In 2012, he became Anniversary Professor at the University of York (UK). Since 2025, he has been a Professor Emeritus at the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the same university.
Prof. Longobardi has been recognized with several honours, including being elected a member of the Academia Europaea in 2022. He has also held visiting positions at institutions such as MIT, UCLA, CNRS Paris, and Harvard University.
His numerous publications include “The Syntax of Noun Phrases: Configuration, Parameters and Empty Categories” (1991) and “Historical Syntax and Linguistic Theory” (2009).
Dr Dimitar Kazakov is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Computer Science at the University of York. His research interests encompass Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computational Linguistics, and the Evolution of Language. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, and supervised 12 PhD students to completion. He is currently leading a team of 4 PhD students. Dr Kazakov is a former Vice-Chair of the UK Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB). His publications include "The origins of syntax: from navigation to language" (2005), "Evolutionary pressures promoting complexity in navigation and communication" (2013), and "Learning implicational models of universal grammar parameters" (2018).
Cristina Guardiano is Full Professor of Linguistics at Unimore. She studied Classics and Linguistics at Pisa, earning a PhD in historical syntax on Ancient Greek nominal structures. Her research spans formal and quantitative linguistics, crosslinguistic comparison, language change, phylogenetic reconstruction, and gene-language comparison. An expert on parametric analysis of nominal phrases and syntactic variation in Greek and Romance, she has co-developed the Parametric Comparison Method with Giuseppe Longobardi since 2001. A Fulbright alumna (UCLA, 2013-14), she was chief research associate of ERC LANGELIN and coordinates Unimore units in PRIN projects. She is part of SSWL and TerraLing, contributing as property author, language expert, and board member. She has held visiting roles at York, Hannover, Cambridge, UCLA, UPenn, Thessaloniki, and Patras. Her publications appear in top journals and handbooks in linguistics and anthropology. Active in PhD teaching and supervision, she organises numerous conferences and workshops. She reviews widely and serves on editorial and evaluation committees, including for l’Italia Dialettale and FWO.