Virginia R. Beavert (November 30, 1921 – February 8, 2024) was a Native American linguist of the Ichishkíin language at the University of Oregon.
[1][2] As early as the age of 12, Beavert began working with Melville Jacobs and other linguists and anthropologists as a liaison and interpreter.
As a result of her distance from Native speakers of Ichishkíin, she discovered it was a struggle to communicate as fluently during a phone call to her mother.
[5] When her stepfather Alexander Saluskin (also known as Chief Wi-ya-wikt) became ill in the 1970s, she set out to get a college education in anthropology and language studies.
[9] At the age of 90, she earned her doctorate in linguistics from the University of Oregon and is the school's oldest graduate in history.