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I am an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Oklahoma in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics. Prior to coming to OU, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Linguistics at McGill University. I have a PhD in linguistics from Cornell University with graduate minors in American Indian and Indigenous Studies and Cognitive Science.
My research program brings together syntax, semantics and morphology, rooted in a strong commitment to fieldwork and language documentation. I investigate possible structural variations crosslinguistically and how these structures interface with semantic computation. My theoretical analyses draw on data collected from fieldwork with understudied languages, namely Ch'ol (Mayan, Mexico) and Mi'gmaq (Algonquian, Canada). I have funded this work with various grants including a doctoral dissertation research improvement grant jointly funded by NSF's Documenting Endangered Languages and Linguistics programs. Here is a link to my dissertation.
2020. PhD Cornell University - Linguistics with minors in American Indian and Indigenous Studies and Cognitive Science
2017. MA Cornell University - Linguistics
2012. BA (Honours) McGill University - Double Major in Linguistics and Russian Studies
Ch'ol is a Mayan language spoken in Southern Mexico. Ethnologue estimates the number of speakers at 250,000. Most of my fieldwork has been done with the Tumbala dialect of Ch'ol in the ejido of San Miguel, Chiapas, Mexico. Check out the Lakty'añ Ch'ol blog for work on documenting the Ch'ol language, including through a National Geographic Explorers Grant and two Engaged Cornell grants. This vimeo page contains some videos in Ch'ol. Here is one about some naughty monkeys, here is one on making empanadas, and here is a scary one about a tiger. In 2018, along with collaborators from the Intercultural University of Tabasco and the Center for Indigenous Literature, Art and Languages of Chiapas we put on a workshop in Salto de Agua, Chiapas on Ch'ol for Ch'ol-speaking students and teachers. Here is a video summary of the workshop.