The First African Deaf PhD Recipient of Linguistics From the International Institute of Sign Language & Deaf Studies
Sam Lutalo-Kiingi is Ugandan Sign Language Lecturer in the Department of Special Needs Education at Kyambogo University, sectionDeaf Education.
As a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP), he’s documenting Extreme North Cameroon Sign Language, an indigenous sign language in the Extreme North Area of Cameroon.
He co-authored the Ugandan Sign Language Dictionary (2006) with Dr. Lars Wallin (Stockholm University) and the Kyambogo research team and coordinated international development cooperation projects funded by Denmark and the United Kingdom. He provided training for sign language instructors in Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Cameroon. In 2012, he was coordinator of the 2nd African Sign Languages Workshop at the 7th World Congress of African Linguistics (WOCAL 7) at the University of Buea, in Cameroon.
Being the first deaf African to undertake a PhD in linguistics, in 2012 Sam Lutalo-Kiingi defended his doctoral thesis on Morpho-Syntax of Ugandan Sign Language at the International Institute for Sign Language and Deaf Studies (iSLanDS) at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), United Kingdom.
Sam Lutalo-Kiingi is currently serving for the second term on the Sign Language Expert Committee of the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD).
Contact: slutalo-kiingi@kyu.ac.ug