Stephen Fafulas, PhD
This Faculty Laureates project serves the University of Mississippi and the state by documenting Latinx populations in the U.S. South, through oral histories, student mentoring, and bilingual education initiatives.
Dr. Stephen Fafulas is Associate Professor at the University of Mississippi where he teaches courses on Spanish language, culture and linguistics. He holds a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics from Indiana University with a specialization in the intersection of Second Language Acquisition and Sociolinguistics.
Since 2013, he is Director of the Study of Communities, Involvement & Outreach and Linguistics Lab through which he mentors students and leads a number of research initiatives with bilingual communities globally. Dr. Fafulas’s projects have been funded by organizations such as the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His publications have been featured in journals such as Linguistics Vanguard and Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics. He is sole editor of “Amazonian Spanish: Language Contact and Evolution,” published with John Benjamins in 2020, which documents emerging Spanish-speaking populations in the Amazon.
Dr. Fafulas is co-founder of the SEC Spanish Consortium, which promotes cross-disciplinary scholarship and cross-institutional collaborations aimed at documenting diversity among Latinx communities in the U.S. South. In 2022, Dr. Fafulas was awarded a Fulbright to Spain, where he gave seminars at Universidad de Murcia and conducted research with the Ecuadorian community living there.
News & Events
-
Hosted by the SEC Spanish Consortium and the Languages & Cultures of Mississippi initiative, thanks to generous support from the UM Faculty Laureates program.
SEC Spanish Consortium Spotlight on Mississippi: Latinos, Cultures and Languages
March 19, 2026 | 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM
The Depot, University of Mississippi
A public symposium bringing together scholars and community members to explore the past, present, and future of Latinos and Spanish in Mississippi. Over the past three decades, Mississippi has emerged as a new destination for Latino populations. This symposium creates a space for dialogue about the social, cultural, linguistic, and public health dimensions of this transformation.
Keynote: Dr. Angela Stuesse “Scratching Out a Living: How the Poultry Industry’s ‘Hispanic Project’ Transformed Mississippi”
Hands-on workshop: Dr. Monique Henderson “Educating bilingual children and Latinos in Mississippi schools”
Bilingual Printmaking Workshop with Frank Estrada
April 18, 2026 | 2:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi
A bilingual, Latino-themed printmaking workshop led by artist Frank Estrada. Designed for students, families, and community members, this hands-on event introduced participants to relief block printmaking in an accessible and creative environment.
-
March 5, 2025
Latinos in Mississippi with Dr. Justin Pinta, Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics at Mississippi State UniversityMarch 19, 2025
Interpreting and Language Access in Healthcare with Selma H. Alford, Director of the Bureau of Language Access for the Mississippi State Department of HealthApril 2, 2025
An Overview of Dual Language Immersion Programs with Dr. Elizabeth Howard, Professor of bilingual education at the University of ConnecticutApril 16, 2025
Counting Latinxs: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Language in the US Census with Jennifer Leeman, PhD, Professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at George Mason University