Lydia Sciriha obtained her first degree in languages from the University of Malta in 1980. She subsequently followed postgraduate studies at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, where she was awarded her M.A.(1984) and Ph.D (1986) in linguistics.
Professor Sciriha has been teaching sociolinguistics, bilingualism, discourse analysis, varieties of English, research methods in linguistics and other related areas since 1987. For a number of years (1987-1993) she was the Director of the University's Language Laboratory Complex.
She has been the recipient of a number of awards which include the Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship, the British Council Scholarship, the Marquis Scicluna Senior Fellowship and the Commonwealth Academic Fellowship and she has also lectured in several countries: Australia, Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Luxembourg.
To date her research output comprises 16 books (authored/co-authored and edited/co-edited) and several papers in scientific journals.
She convened the International Conference on Bilingualism in 2015 and the 2nd International Conference on Bilingualism in 2019, both of which were held at the University of Malta Valletta Campus. Nearly 200 delegates from 45 countries participated in each of these conferences.
