Amaya Mendikoetxea Pelayo (Bilbao, 1962) is a Spanish philologist, professor and researcher, expert in English linguistics, Rector of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid since 2021. Since 2019, she has been Professor of English Linguistics in the Department of English Philology, which she joined in 1991, when the degree in English Philology was being launched. She has also taught at the University of Deusto (1989-1991) and at the University of Leeds (UK) (1987-1989). She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of York (UK, 1992), where she also did an MA in Theoretical Linguistics, and a BA in English Philology from the University of Deusto (1986). She researches language as a biological property of human beings, focusing on its architecture (syntax) and its acquisition. She is particularly interested in the comparison between languages, as concrete manifestations of this property, in terms of what this comparison reveals about the properties of language as a cognitive system. He is a member of the consolidated research group GRATECOM (Theoretical and Comparative Grammar). In the 1993-94 academic year, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thanks to a Fulbright grant. He has also completed other stays, including UCLA (1997) and Lancaster University (2006-07). She has taught on the degrees in English Studies and Modern Languages, Culture and Communication, as well as on the Master's degree in Applied English Linguistics and on numerous doctoral programmes. She has been Vice-Rector for International Relations (2013-2017), Vice-Dean of Undergraduate Studies (2009-2013) and Head of the Department of English Language and Literature (2003-2006).
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