Roberta D'Alessandro is professor of Linguistics / Syntax and Language Variation and Head of the Linguistics section. She is a member of the Institute for Language Sciences (ILS) and of the Descartes Centre for the History of the Sciences and Humanities.

Her research interests include syntactic variation, heritage languages, agreement, syntactic change in contact, the syntax-phonology interface, as well as formal approaches to complexity in heritage grammars and honorificity. She founded the Heritage Language Syntax platform, an international research network dedicated to the syntax of heritage languages.

Roberta is editor-in-chief of Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, a diamond Open Access journal, and of the Brill series Grammars and Sketches of the World's languages/Romance, and co-editor of the Language Science Press series Open Generative Syntax. She's the president of Going Romance.

She co-authored the Dutch Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2018), advises the European Commission through JRC initiatives, and serves on the Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science of the International Science Council. A member of INGSA, the International Network for Governmental Science Advice, Roberta is an active Open Access advocate who works with policymakers and expert networks to strengthen the role of research in public decision-making, and is committed to building inclusive academic communities.

She founded Your Academic Auntie, a free mentoring initiative for early-career researchers worldwide, complemented by a Microfund for researchers in low- and middle-income countries.

Recent works

• D'Alessandro, R. Putnam, M.T & S. Terenghi. 2025. Syntactic change in diachrony versus contact-induced change: two sides of the same coin? The Linguistic Review
• D'Alessandro, R., Putnam, M.T. & S. Terenghi. 2025. Heritage Languages and Syntactic Theory. An Introduction. In D'Alessandro, Putnam & Terenghi (eds), Heritage Languages and Syntactic Theory. OUP.
• D'Alessandro, R., Andriani, L., Frasson, A., Pinto, M., Sorgini, L. & S. Terenghi. 2025. Microcontact and syntactic theory. In D'Alessandro, Putnam & Terenghi (eds), Heritage Languages and Syntactic Theory. OUP.
• D'Alessandro, R. & S. Terenghi. 2024. Non-monotonic functional sequences: A new metric for complexity in heritage languages. In: Polinsky & Putnam (eds), Formal approaches to complexity in heritage language grammars. Language Science Press.
• Chandra, P., D'Alessandro, R. & M. Putnam. 2024. Ethical concerns for theoretical research in linguistics: Issues and best practices. Linguistics.
• D'Alessandro, R. & A. Frasson. 2023. Simplification or complexification: auxiliary selection and anti-agreement effect in Brazilian Venetan. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 22, 9-27.

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