Rate My Professor Catriona Malau

Malau's primary research interests lie in language description, documentation, typology, and lexicography of Oceanic languages, particularly those of Vanuatu, including Vurës (spoken by approximately 1,500 people on Vanua Lava) and North-East Ambae. Over the past decade, she has extensively documented Vurës, supported by the Volkswagen Foundation's DoBeS programme since 2006, producing deposits in the DoBeS digital archive, a web-based multimedia dictionary, and creative works such as the children's book 'Teaavagaraga na Jowi go Marina (Jowi and Marina's Wedding)' (2023). Notable publications include her monograph 'A Grammar of Vurës, Vanuatu' (2016, Pacific Linguistics 651), 'A Dictionary of Vurës, Vanuatu' (2021, ANU Press), and co-authored 'The Language and Life of Vanua Lava' (2012). Recent articles feature 'CreoleVal: Multilingual Multitask Benchmarks for Creoles' (2024) and 'Change and variation in the possessive systems of the Vanuatu Polynesian Outliers' (2025). She has secured seven research grants totaling $390,613. In teaching, she covers introductory linguistics and linguistics for education. Malau has supervised 13 PhD students to completion and one current, earning the College Excellence Award for Research Supervision (2023), Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning (Office for Learning and Teaching, 2012), and Vice-Chancellor's Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning (University of Newcastle, 2011). Her fieldwork involves community immersion, contributing to Pacific language maintenance and cultural identity.