Sarah Thomason is the Bernard Bloch Distinguished Professor Emerita of Linguistics at the University of Michigan. She specializes in historical linguistics, language contact, and language documentation, with a focus on principles of contact-induced language change. Her research includes the linguistic study of Salish-Pend d'Oreille, a Native American language, and involves collaboration with elders for the preparation of a dictionary and text collection. Over the past seven years, she has chaired or co-chaired six Ph.D. dissertation committees, covering topics related to indigenous languages of North America as well as computational historical linguistics. Thomason has taught various courses including Historical Linguistics, Language History, and seminars on Salish-Pend d'Oreille Linguistics and Endangered Languages. She served as President of the Linguistic Society of America in 2009 and of the Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages of the Americas in 2000. An editor for the LSA's journal Language from 1988 to 1994, she continues to influence the field of linguistics actively.