Biography

I was born and raised in Turkey, and I got my BA degree in the Foreign Language Education (FLE) at the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey in the Spring of 2022. At METU, I was trained principles of syntactic theory, Turkish and English morphology, and cognitive aspects of second language (L2) acquisition (SLA). As an undergraduate student, I collaborated with my colleagues and professors to conduct research studies on cognitive SLA, and I presented these studies in two different international conferences. Thanks to these studies, I was listed on METU FLE's undergraduate research page. 

Upon graduating from METU in Spring 2022, thanks to my efforts and dedication to became a researcher, I was admitted to the fully-funded MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL program at the University of Alabama (UA), Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In this program, I was trained in corpus linguistics, English linguistics, and English as a second language (ESL) through the required coursework. In addition, thanks to the elective courses, I improved my skills in quantitative research methods and data analysis using SPSS and R. For my master's thesis, I focused on Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools and their impacts on the First-Year Writing programs, and I obtained my MA degree upon publishing my thesis titled "The Promise and Peril of AI Technology for Writing Instruction: An Exploratory Study on Stakeholder Attitudes Toward Using AI Tools in a University First-Year Writing Program" in Spring 2024. 

While studying usage-based, functional, and socio-cultural aspects of linguistics (Applied Linguistics), I kept reading and studying formal and generative aspects of linguistic theory outside of my curricular requirements, which helped me get accepted to the PhD in Linguistics program at the University of Georgia (UGA), Athens, Georgia in Fall 2024. Here at the UGA, I study syntax, morphology, and psycholinguistics as my primary areas of interest. I also get training and collaborate with fellow researchers to conduct experimental studies on Aphasia and other neurologic language disorders that affect syntactic processing. I am currently in the process of completing the coursework requirements, and planning my qualifying papers.

If you are further interested in my work, you can view my CV here: Emre_Keser_CV