My research focuses on the systemic properties of sign language lexicons, guided by the following questions. How do signs emerge and take on categorical formational properties in relation to other signs in a lexicon; that is, in their phonology and morphology? How are those forms constrained by communicative and learnability pressures, such as confusability, frequency, articulatory ease, and phonological complexity? How do meanings become encoded in form within a lexical network, at both the level of word meaning, as well as in the motivated sub-parts of words, such as iconic motivations and metaphoric reference? 

I completed my PhD at University of California San Diego in 2017 in Linguistics with a specialization in Anthropogeny (via CARTA, the Center for Academic Research & Training in Anthropogeny). In 2022, an update of my thesis was published by Ishara Press/de Gruyter Mouton: A Phonological Grammar of Kenyan Sign Language [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110765694]. I have held post-doctoral positions at (i) the University of Haifa, in Wendy Sandler's Grammar of the Body project, and Rama Novogrodsky's Lab; (ii) at Leiden University as a Marie Sklodowska-Curie COFUND Fellow and PI for the project Advancing the Lexicography of Sign Languages: Form, Meaning, and Motivation; and (iii) at Radboud University in the EASIER project and for Onno Crasborn's NWO VICI, Deaf Communication without a Shared Language.

Currently, I lead the ERC Starting Grant project, Naming the world: Semantic associations & form-meaning mappings in the mental lexicon across sign languages or SemaSign (ERC-2023-STG no.101117395, 2024–2029) at IDGS, Universität Hamburg.

PhD (co-)supervision:

Marta Morgado • thesis: Personal experience narratives in three West African sign languages; defended at Leiden University, February 2024

Mariana Martins • thesis project investigates the emergence of a young sign language in Bissau, the capital of Guinea Bissau in West Africa (defense in early 2026)

Margaret Odhiambo • thesis project explores semantic networks, lexical variation, and language-cultural intersections in Kenyan Sign Language (KSL)

Lisa Loy • thesis project evaluates how annotation choices impact computational representations of phonological distance in German Sign Language (DGS)

Affiliations:

African Sign Languages Workshop at WOCAL

Rift Valley Network (RVN)

Center for Academic Research & Training Anthropogeny (CARTA)

Kenya National Association of the Deaf (KNAD)