Vale Tim McNamara

It is with great sadness that we farewell Tim McNamara (1949–2023), who passed away on Friday 15 September at the Bethlehem Hospital in Melbourne.

Tim had a highly successful international career in applied linguistics and was a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne, where he established the Melbourne Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics in 1987 and the Language Testing Research Centre in 1990, the latter emerging over the course of thirty years as the world’s leading independent research centre in this field. From 2017 to 2018 Tim served as president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, before retiring in 2018. In 2021 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his significant service. His work on language and identity over the course of his esteemed career culminated in his landmark book Language and Subjectivity (2019).

In addition to his academic achievements, Tim engaged with many colleagues and friends in a very personal way and opened possibilities for a fuller understanding of people’s different cultures and individuality. Sadly, he did not live to hold a copy of his last achievement, his upcoming book, Paul and Paula, which we are honoured to be publishing in December 2023, but he has left us all with this legacy.

Image courtesy of Patricia A. Haim