Bio

I earned a degree in Catalan Language and Literature (2016) from Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Catalonia), where I graduated first in my class with an award for the best BA thesis in the department, which was on Catalan Interlanguage and received supervision from Dr. Ginebra Serrabou. I started my studies being greatly interested in literature, it was not until my year abroad at Goethe Universität Frankfurt (Germany, 2013-14) that my interest in linguistics surpassed my interest in literature. During my stay there, my curiosity was sparked by their courses in Psycholinguistics, the several languages that were offered (of which I took Portuguese and Italian), and the presence of Catalan as a foreign language. It was fascinating to see Germans take on a challenge like Catalan! During the international meeting of students of Catalan abroad in Frankfurt, I was fascinated by Germans, Hungarians, Russians, and Brits using Catalan to talk to one another.

Before starting my first M.A., I attended a three-week intensive Danish language and culture program at the International People’s College in Helsingør (Denmark) with a scholarship from the Danish government. Afterward, I pursued an M.A. in General Linguistics at Radboud University (Nijmegen, The Netherlands; 2016-17). There, I started exploring second language acquisition (SLA), psycholinguistics, multilingualism, L1 acquisition, language universals, and statistics. As part of my studies, I interned with Dr. Unsworth in her 2in1 project on bilingualism. Her guidance and advice, jointly with Dr. van Dijk’s, helped me further my research skills and knowledge in bilingualism and L3 transfer, which I wrote my M.A. thesis on. Radboud University is home to several institutions: the Centre for Language Studies, the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Access to all these institutions allowed me to further develop professionally by attending several of the workshops and events hosted there.

Upon completing my first M.A., I went on to earn an M.A. in Intercultural Communication along with a Certificate in TESOL at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (the US, 2017-19) with a Fulbright-Spain fellowship. During my studies there, I had the honor to present at different conferences in places like UCLA, Indiana University, and the University of Chicago. In addition, I had the pleasure to teach and mentor students of Spanish and actively participate in and organize departmental events. As part of my studies, I researched the incidental acquisition of the Spanish grammatical gender under the supervision of Dr. Schwartz, as well as Dr. Long’s (University of Maryland, College Park) mentorship. Having missed being involved with literature, during my studies at UMBC, I also earned a certificate in Digital Publishing from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (2018).

After completing my studies at UMBC, I started a Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Maryland, College Park. There, I am a “laCaixa” fellow and a student representative to the Dean’s Graduate Advisory Board. This Summer (2020) I am a Catalan-American exchange intern at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage under Dr. Mason's supervision. During my internship I worked on ethnographic projects concerned with Catalan drinks, the power of place in Catalonia, and supporting the project SomVallBas.

Currently, I am a Ph.D. student in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Maryland, College Park. As a Ph.D. student, I have worked with Dr. Mike Long, Dr. Steven Ross, and Dr. Nan Jiang. In addition to my program, I have earned a certificate in Measurement, Statistics, and Evaluation (Spring 2022) and in Cognitive Science (Spring 2023). My current research interests can be found on the page "Home" and my projects are under "My projects".