title: Sheila Embleton
text: # Sheila Embleton
  
  Sheila Margaret Embleton FRSC (born 1954) is a Canadian and British linguist. She is a Distinguished Research Professor of Linguistics at York University. Embleton is a Knight First Class of the Order of the White Rose of Finland.
  
  ## Career
  
  Embleton joined the faculty at York University in 1980. She served various academic roles such as Undergraduate Program Director, Graduate Program Director, Associate Dean, and Vice-President Academic and Provost. As an Associate Dean, Embleton was awarded a Knight First Class of the Order of the White Rose of Finland. She also served as president of the Canadian Friends of Finland Education Foundation, where she led a campaign to create a Chair in Finnish Studies at the University of Toronto.
  
  While in her role as vice-president academic and Provost, she helped create York's first-ever India strategy and eventually served as president of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. Embleton also Chaired the Ontario Council of Academic Vice-Presidents and sat on the Board of the Ontario Universities Application Centre.
  
  In 2010, Embleton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
  
  ## Personal life
  
  Embleton married Wolfgang Ahrens in 1981, but chose to keep her last name. When their daughter was born in 1989, she took Embleton's name.
  
  ## Selected publications
  
  * Statistics in historical linguistics (1986)
  * Names and Their Substitutes: Onomastic Observations on Astérix and Its Translations (1991)
  * Lexicostatistics/glottochronology: from Swadesh to Sankoff to Starostin to future horizons (2000)
  