Professor Olga Fischer Continues the Tradition

Professor Olga Fischer (b. 1951) was appointed Professor of Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam in 1999. She studied English in Amsterdam during the early seventies, using the Harting fund to go abroad and earning a Master’s degree at the University of Newcastle. As well as Hans Heinrich Meier of the Vrije Universiteit, who was a key advisor during her studies, Fischer was also mentored by her doctoral supervisor at the University of Amsterdam, Professor Andries Vos. Continuing her record of exceptional scholarly achievement, her PhD, “Syntactic Change and Causation: Developments in Infinitival Constructions in English,” was awarded the distinction Cum Laude.

Professor Fischer is a prolific scholar and has written on many topics, including the history of English and language variation. Between 2000 and 2013, she was also invited to serve as visiting professor at the universities of Innsbruck, Zurich, Lille, and Vienna.

Read Professor Fischer’s memories of the English Department here.