Overview of current and recent work 

Years of experience as a language learner, a language teacher, an interpreter, and a translator propelled me into neuroscience seeking to understand the neural bases of language.  Utilizing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), behavioral research methods, discourse analysis, and language testing methodology, I examine natural contextualized communication from multiple perspectives.  My current research examines theories of first and second language acquisition, embodied communication, and the integration of rhythm, intonation, language, and body movement during speech production and perception.

As a postdoctoral researcher at the UCSD Center for Research in Language, I am investigating neural processing of co-speech gesture in bimodal bilinguals (i.e., individuals who speak an oral language and a signed language) in collaboration with Dr. Karen Emmorey.  Additionally, I am examining whether/how neural responses are impacted by meaning and saliency in co-speech gesture.  Preliminary behavioral experimentation for this study is already providing new insights into how conversational co-speech gesture is processed.

My dissertation projects utilized fMRI to investigate neural processing of co-speech gesture in adult native English speakers, Japanese-English bilinguals, children with autism spectrum disorders, and typically-developing children.  Collaborators in this research include dissertation co-chairs Dr. Mirella Dapretto and Dr. John Schumann as well as Dr. Daniel Callan and Dr. Stephen Wilson.  Reflecting my applied linguistics training, the fMRI paradigm used in this study was highly novel in that it successfully isolated the object of study (i.e., co-speech gesture) within stimuli comprising conversational, spontaneously produced speech.

Along with my training and coursework in neuroscience, applied linguistics, linguistics, and psychology, my experience and training as an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher and as a Japanese-English translator provide research intuitions, insights, and inspiration.  My ultimate goal is to make useful contributions to language teaching, teacher education, and higher education fields such as linguistics and cognitive science through an ongoing, appropriate, effective application of neuroscience research to our understanding of language as a higher cognitive function.