My hometown in South Carolina had lots of great accents and dialects that probably kickstarted my love for linguistics. I graduated with my BA in psychology (and a minor in Classical Civilizations) from Emory University, where I swam varsity for four years. After that, I took a year off of school and worked as a swim coach at Swim Atlanta and research assistant at Emory's Speech Perception Lab. I went back to school and got my MA in English at NC State, then headed to Michigan for my PhD in Linguistics. Aside from my abiding love of linguistics, I'm also obsessed with most things scifi. As such, I spend a fair amount of time hanging out with my cats, Katniss and Merlyn, watching scifi-related things, writing about the whatever is currently on my mind, and occasionally trying to jog.
University of Michigan's Language Matters initiative is working to raise awareness of the effect language and language attitudes can have in the classroom and on campus at large. Click the picture to check out our website. There is also an outreach program at NC State through the North Carolina Language and Life program that you should also check out if you're interested. If anyone wants more info about our initiative (including how to start one on your own campus), feel free to contact me!Â