Welcome
I'm a seventh year graduate student in the Department of Linguistics at the Ohio State University, and I have been studying linguistics since I was an undergraduate at Northern Illinois University in the late 1990s. Before coming to OSU, I also worked for several years as a research assistant investigating technology integration and bilingual education issues in schools throughout the Midwest at the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (now Learning Point Associates) in Naperville, IL. I received my BA in English and Linguistics at Northern Illinois University in 1999, an MA in Linguistics at the Ohio State University in 2007, and I expect to complete my PH D in Linguistics at Ohio State in 2010.
My Current Research Agenda
I study accent variation based on social factors such as socio-economic class, age, sex, and race among English speaking working and middle class European and African Americans living in the United States from both a diachronic and a synchronic viewpoint. In my current research, I study present-day pronunciation variation in the vowel systems of middle and working class European and African American Americans living in Columbus, OH. I also study historical changes in pronunciation in the Central Ohio Dialect over the course of the 19th and 20th Centuries, as reflected in the vowel systems of Columbusites born throughout much of this time period. In addition, I focus on the interface of regional and social dialectology and urban geography.
My dissertation, entitled A New Perspective on Vowel Variation across the 20th Century in Columbus, OH (to be completed June, 2010) focuses on vowel variation in Columbus among European Americans from all of these perspectives. If you are interested in seeing work in progress on my dissertation, more information can be found at the A Century of Language Change in Columbus Web site. My committee members include Don Winford, Cynthia Clopper, and Brian Joseph.
Teaching and Mentoring
I also often teach one of three courses for OSU at the undergraduate level: "Language and Social Identity in the USA," "Language, Race, and Ethnicity," and "Language, Gender, and Sexuality." Each of these courses focuses on fostering an appreciation of regional, social, and ethnic dialect awareness and diversity among students. In addition, I am actively involved in mentoring undergraduate students via my involvement in the Department's Undergraduate Internship Program. Since 2005, I have mentored 8 undergraduates, 7 of whom have worked with me on my Century of Language Change in Columbus (CLCC) and Central Ohio Dialect Survey projects.