Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - The Central Women's Representative

Highly innovative project in an exciting field of research

Milene Mendes de Oliveira was unanimously chosen as the 2024 Caroline von Humboldt Award winner. The selection committee agreed with the view expressed in the nomination that De Oliveira's combination and investigation of World Englishes, English as a Lingua Franca, intercultural communication and cultural linguistics with the field of business communication as well as the linking of various cognitive linguistic and cultural linguistic approaches deserved the highest recognition: "Dr Mendes de Olivera is without doubt one of the most promising early-career scholars in the exciting and rapidly growing field of multilingualism and interculturality."

De Oliveira fulfilled the selection criteria to a particularly high degree, the jury also emphasised that this cultural-linguistic practice represents outstanding research. De Oliveira was honoured for her highly innovative and exciting project, which is associated with Prof. Dr Heike Wiese at the Institute for German Language and Linguistics.

Transdisciplinary approaches to the problem of interculturality

Milene Mendes de Oliveira's research is fundamentally transdisciplinary - she combines various approaches, such as cognitive linguistics and cultural linguistics. In her HU project ‘English as a lingua franca and (inter)culturality in virtual transient groups’, she is investigating the increasing practice of virtual meetings worldwide since 2020 and the communication patterns that develop in these ‘transient groups’. With a focus on English as a lingua franca, she examines the creation of meaning in interculturality.

Milene Mendes de Oliveira was a PostDoc and academic assistant at the University of Potsdam, Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London in 2023 and Visiting Professor at Viadrina University Frankfurt/Oder in 2024. Since then, she has been a Lecturer at Newcastle University.

The award ceremony will take place on 2 December 2025.