Dominique Ryon

Dominique Ryon is an academic and educator with over twenty years of professional experience. A native French speaker, Dominique Ryon has taught as a lecturer and professor throughout the United States and Canada. As a Professor of Modern Languages, Dominique Ryon's teaching experience has ranged from elementary-level French and Chinese courses, to more advanced graduate classes such as French Linguistics and Sociolinguistics of French in the Francophone World. Dominique Ryon also taught anthropology courses, including classes on Chinese culture, as well as a general survey courses focusing on the study of cultural anthropology.

Dominique Ryon's accomplishments as an expert on Louisiana French dialects has earned her accolades from a number of institutions and organizations. In 2000, she acted as Co-Principal Investigator on a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Division of Preservation and Access, which Ryon and her colleagues used to research a dictionary on Cajun French. Eventually, this project materialized into a full-length book, Dictionary of Louisiana French, which was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2010. Some highlights of the many book chapters and articles Dominique Ryon also published include “Language Death Studies and Local Knowledge: The Case of Cajun French” published in 2005 in the book Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice for the ESL & Applied Linguistics Professional Series; "Conflict, Assimilation and Ethnolinguistic Identity among French-speaking Communities in Louisiana" (originally in French) published in the journal Etudes Francophones; and "The Reason of State and Language Planning: a Case Study of French in Louisiana" (also originally in French), published in the journal La Revue Francaise.

Beyond her work in academia, Dominique Ryon also serves as a member and a board member for a number of community film organizations as well as cultural associations.

A lifelong scholar, Dominique Ryon received her Master's degree from the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris III in France in 1986. From there, Ryon enrolled in the University of Montreal where she received her Ph.D. in 1994.