Rebeca Fernández Rodríguez is an assistant professor at the Department of Languages, Literature and Communication. She lectures on Spanish (Socio)Linguistics, pragmatics, translation, research methods and writing, and Language acquisition. She has previously taught at the Universidad de Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro (Portugal), the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Leiden. 

She is a member of the research institute Institute for Language Sciences (ILS), the Executive Committee of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas and the president of the Asociación de Hispanistas del Benelux.

She is the National Coordinator Masterlanguage Spanish. Since 2018, she has been the desk editor of ERLACS by CEDLA, and a member of the Editorial team of Language & History. She is a member of the Scientific Board of Histoire Épistemologie Langage (HEL) and the Iberoamericana/Vervuert series Lingüística misionera.  She is affiliated with the Laboratoire Histoires des Théories Linguistiques (Paris, France), and the Centro de Estudos em Letras (UTAD, Portugal). 

She participates (or has participated) in several international projects: 

• Digital Pallas (since 2019), in collaboration with the Instituut voor de Nederlandse Taal. 
• Projet-ARN-23-CE27-0008. ChEDiL Chinese-European Dictionaries: Lexicographical Manuscripts for the Historical Study of Exchanges between China and Europe (end of 16th— beginning of 19th centuries) - (PI: Michela Bussotti, EFEO) (2024-2027).
• Seminario permanente de Historiografía Lingüística (FES Acatlán-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) (2018).
• Etnolexicografía de lenguas indígenas patagónicas (Universidad de la Pampa, Argentina) (2017-2019).

Her research is focused on the historical aspects of Spanish in contact with languages from the Americas and the Philippines. She is particularly interested in the linguistic documentation compiled by missionaries, sailors, explorers, and polymaths, as well as the circulation of knowledge between Europe-Asia-America. She is also interested in the history of teaching languages, and translation theories and strategies. She takes a special interest in the opportunities digital tools offer for the study of historical linguistics and the historiography of linguistics.

She is editing the oldest grammar (1627) and the oldest bilingual dictionary (ca. 1760) of the Iloko language. She is also co-editing the Routledge Handbook on the History of Descriptive Linguistics with Prof. Dr. Otto Zwartjes. 

In recent years, she has organized the Spain Today annual conference, commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.