Mike Morgan

Although trained in zoology (BS, U of Illinois, 1978), kismet (and an undergraduate language requirement) first got me interested in learning languages. My first job after graduating -- as a Peace Corps fisheries volunteer in Siraha, Nepal) -- made me realize that I was in the wrong field, and so I returned to the US to get my MA and then PhD in Slavic linguistics (with a "minor" in Indo-European Studies and a year studying Swahili thrown in for good measure).
Aside from time spent in the US for my MA/PhD coursework, and my wife's MA, and one year of teaching Slavics at Duke U, I have spent the past 34 years in Asia, teaching at universities and doing field linguistics.
Almost immediately after completing my dissertation on Bulgarian prepositions, I got interested in sign language(s)... starting with Japanese SL, and over the years adding American SL, Bolivian SL, Taiwanese SL, Indian SL, Ethiopian SL ... and now, back in Nepal, Nepali SL. And, although I have not lost interest in spoken languages, and do field research on them from time to time, gradually over the past 20-plus years my research focus has increasingly been on sign language typology and comparative linguistics of sign language.
Aside from teaching at universities on three continents (Indiana University and Duke University in the US, Niigata University, Nagaoka Technical University, International University fo Japan and Kobe University of Foreign Studies in Japan,Indira Gandhi National Open University in India, and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia), I have also been active in Deaf adult education, and have spent a couple years working for a Deaf literacy NGO in Bombay/Mumbai. More recently I have worked as adviser on Deaf Education and Sign Language attached to the National Deaf Federation of Nepal, and then to the Deaf Association of Guyana (serving also in a school as a 1-year Peace Corps Response volunteer). After that for one year I was Academic Adviser to Bhartiya Badhir Vidyalaya (Indian Deaf School, Lucknow), a Deaf school which was to be Deaf-managed, Deaf-Centric, Deaf Friendly. I designed the multilingual curriculum which gives primacy of place to Indian Sign Language as the central language of instruction and communication, but which also sets attainment of full and balanced literacy in both written Hindi and written English as a goal by 10th standard, and an international sign language as optional fourth language in upper secondary school. Teacher training and coordinating on development of teaching/learning materials were also art of my duties.
Currently I am back in Nepal, working with the NDFN, and local Deaf schools again, advising and giving trainings as needed.
Address: c/o
BBV
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
INDIA