Dr Bruce Downing Biography

Bruce T. Downing, Associate Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the University of Minnesota, grew up in Idaho and received a B.A. in English from the College of Idaho (1959), later earning the M.A. (1963) and Ph.D. (1970) in linguistics from the University of Texas. Before joining the U. of M. Department of Linguistics in 1974, he taught at Robert College (Istanbul, Turkey) and the University of Southern California. In 1980 Dr. Downing became director of the Southeast Asian Refugee Studies Project (SARS), conducting research in Hmong refugee communities and participating in the federally-funded Hmong Resettlement Study. As a member of the University’s Refugee Mental Health Technical Assistance Center, 1985-89, he worked with other scholars to promote quality interpreting in refugee mental health services nationally. From 1990 until his retirement in 2008, he served as director of the University of Minnesota’s Program in Translation and Interpreting. Dr. Downing was a founding member of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care and served for many years on its Standards, Training, and Certification Committee. He has published over the years in the areas of linguistics, refugee resettlement, and interpreting. Dr. Downing is a recipient of the Refugee Community Service Award of the Minnesota Department of Human Services (1991), the University of Minnesota’s Outstanding Community Service Award (2000), and the Distinguished Teaching Award of the University’s College of Continuing Education (2007); he was named a Language Access Champion by NCIHC in 2019.