Natalia Mazzaro is an associate professor at the University of Texas (in El Paso, Texas, US), whose research explores the linguistic and social factors that govern language variation, the social meanings attached to different language variants, and the role of linguistic variation in identity construction. She has also developed an interest in a second line of research that investigates language contact in the linguistic landscape of multilingual/bilingual areas, with the aim of understanding the complex relationship between language use and prestige, and grasping its roots in the coexisting speech communities who inhabit the territory.