Dr. Rosemary G. Beam de Azcona (Kansas City, Kansas, 1971) is a linguist specializing in the Zapotecan language family. She holds an A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Beam has worked at universities in the US, Australia and Mexico, where she is currently Professor of Scientific Research in the Linguistics Graduate Program of the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH by its acronym in Spanish) in Mexico City. Since 1996 she has worked with speakers of numerous Zapotec languages, focusing on the documentation and description of endangered and minority languages spoken today. Her work also involves comparative dialectology, language contact and the reconstruction of Zapotecan linguistic prehistory. By comparing data from diverse Zapotecan and other Otomanguean languages, and through collaboration with scholars from other disciplines, Dr. Beam seeks to use the study of language as a tool for understanding cultural history within a cross-disciplinary approach that includes linguistics, philology, ethnohistory, archaeology and cultural anthropology.