Akinbiyi Akinlabi is Professor of Linguistics at Rutgers University, USA, and President of the World Congress of African Linguistics. He is well-known for his pioneering work on underspecification theory and tonal structure in Yoruba and has worked extensively on the phonology and morphology of West African languages. Professor Akinlabi is the author and co-editor of several books, including Yoruba: A Phonological Grammar, Theoretical Approaches to African Linguistics (1995) and Proceedings of the 4th WOCAL Conference of African Linguistics (2003). In addition, he has published in several highly-rated journals, such as Linguistic Inquiry, Lingua and the Journal of Linguistics.
Olanike Ola Orie is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Linguistics Program at Tulane University, USA. Since publishing her dissertation in 1997, her field of specialization has been the phonology and morphology of Benue-Congo languages, especially Yoruba. Most recently, she has been documenting language loss patterns in post-lingual deafness contexts and comparing the observed properties to language acquisition in children. Her recent publications include: Acquisition Reversal: the Effects of Postlingual Deafness in Yoruba (2012) and Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference on African Linguistics: Linguistic Interfaces in African Languages (2013). Her work has appeared in several academic journals, such as the Journal of Linguistics, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, and The Linguistic Review.