Diane Brentari is the Mary K. Werkman Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the College, and a Director of the Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language. Her work focuses on sign language structure as a way to better understand the flexibility of the human language capacity, particularly the effects of communication mode (or modality) on language structure. Her research interests address the languages of Deaf and DeafBlind communities—how these languages emerge, and the degree of variation that exists among them. Throughout her career she has analyzed the formal, cognitive, and cultural dimensions that motivate the similarities and differences among the grammars of these languages. Her current research includes analyses of a new protactile language that is emerging in DeafBlind communities in the USA. Protactile language focuses on the modalities of proprioception and touch, which are the focus of the Impressions of the Past research project at the Neubauer Collegium. Brentari’s research has been supported by multiple awards from the National Science Foundation. She is a fellow of the Linguistic Society of America, a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.