About Me

Hi, nice to virtually meet you! I'm a second-generation Goan-American and an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Modern Languages at Fort Hays State University.

I recently completed my PhD candidate in Linguistics at the University of California at Davis. My research interests center around one of my family's heritage languages--Konkani. Konkani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mostly around Goa, India but also along the Konkan coast toward Maharashtra and Karnataka. 

As an academic, my research includes sociolinguistic work on issues important to the Konkani speech community, such as language maintenance, as well as descriptive and theoretical work on the grammar of Konkani. I teach courses in Linguistics as well as English Composition, Rhetoric, and Writing.  

As a community member, I strive to use my research to help promote Konkani maintenance and create tools for Konkani language learning. Like many second-generation Goans in the diaspora, Konkani was not passed on to me as a child. As a result I am eager to learn Konkani and share my journey of learning my heritage language as both a linguist and a Goan-American. 

Dev Borem Korum!

Dr. Melissa Gomes

Research Interests: Language Documentation & Maintenance, Syntax, Morphology, Sociolinguistics, Contact Linguistics, South Asian Linguistics, Public Scholarship

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Email: magomes@fhsu.edu