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Linguist Alice Taff's work specializes in indigenous languages in Alaska, especially in the Unangam Tunuu (Aleut) language. Unangam Tunuu is indigenous to the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands of Alaska and forms a branch of the Eskimo-Aleut family. Taff received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities from the University of Louisville in 1968, her Master of Arts in Teaching in Elementary Education from the University of Louisville in the Teacher Corps in 1972, and her Master of Arts (1992) and her Ph.D. (1999) in Linguistics from the University of Washington. Her Ph.D. work focused on the research conducted for her thesis, "Phonetics and Phonology of Unangan (Eastern Aleut) Intonation."

Beginning in 2007, Taff researched and taught Alaskan Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast. She has also worked as a researcher, as a consulting linguist for schools and tribal organizations, and as a teacher and professor for students ranging in age from elementary school to college. Taff served as the President of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas from 2015 to 2016, as the Co-Director of the Endangered Language Fund's Healing through Language Initiative, and has been a member of the Tlingit Clan Conference organizing committee, the Linguistic Society of American Committee on Endangered Language Preservation, and the Anvik Historical Society.