Víctor Fernández-Mallat completed his Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures (Spanish Linguistics specialization) in 2014 at the Université de Montréal, specializing in sociolinguistics, language contact, and language variation. He joined the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University in 2018, where he teaches a variety of courses in Spanish Linguistics.

His research interests include understanding the internal (linguistic) and external (social) factors that are affecting language variation, and the various ways in which speakers use this variation to project their identities in interaction. His current research explores variation in forms of address, particularly variation that occurs in Chilean Spanish and in dialectal contact situations in the U.S. In his research, he examines the social meaning granted to different forms of address and the role of identity projection and context in the variation of said forms.