Dr. Laura Siragusa (PhD Anthropology, University of Aberdeen, 2013) is a linguistic anthropologist and sociolinguist with a focus on environmental and historical anthropology.

Her research explores communicative practices within the broader context of language ecology, encompassing political, economic, social, and cultural dynamics. She has extensively studied language revival movements, human-environment relationships, and the materiality of language, among other significant topics.

Siragusa’s work is primarily concentrated on the European/Russian (sub-)Arctic region, an area of growing global interest due to its sustainability, ecological, and political challenges. The region's multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic composition, coupled with its dual image as both a pristine environment and a highly exploited land, underscores its relevance in contemporary discussions. She employs ethnographic and archival methods in her socio-cultural research centered on language. In this region, she has developed collaborative relationships with Indigenous groups, particularly the Veps and Sámi peoples. Committed to long-term ethnographic fieldwork, she frequently revisits villages and cities to engage closely with local communities.

Through collaborative research, Siragusa has contributed to the revitalization efforts of Indigenous minorities in the North (see her monograph published by Routledge, 2017). Additionally, her use of archival methods has allowed her to examine verbal acts employed by Indigenous and local communities to shape human-environment interactions (see, for example, her paper in Current Anthropology and the special issue of Multilingua). She is also involved in a historical project focused on a collection of letters between Franz Boas and his colleagues in Imperial Russia/Soviet Union. This co-edited two-volume work, expected to be published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2025, aims to reveal how these scholars built bridges and co-constructed academic knowledge through regular correspondence.

Her teaching experience is rooted in humanistic inquiry, with the goal of developing students' abilities to think, read, and write broadly and critically. She has extensive experience teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels, serving as both a staff and guest lecturer at various universities.