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About Me

Academic

I have a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Arizona (02024), where I also received an MS in Human Language Technology (02019). Before coming to Arizona, I worked as a Junior Linguist at Google in Mountain View, CA. Prior to that, I received an MA in Linguistics (02015) and a BA in Linguistics and Spanish (with a minor in Russian, 02013) from the University of Utah.

My two main research interests are computational linguistics and theoretical syntax.

In the computational domain, my interests include:

  1. Developing tools for low-resource and endangered languages
  2. Evaluating the quality and consistency of open source data sets, particularly for low-resource languages
  3. Applying knowledge from theoretical linguistics to computational linguistics problems

In the theoretical domain, my interests include:

  1. Case (especially Quirky case)
  2. Agreement (especially agreement 'failures')
  3. Word order (especially V2 and word order variation)
  4. How 1-3 interact with each other

Some of the languages I am interested in, roughly grouped by topic/region:

Non-Academic

I actually have interests outside of linguistics.

I am especially interested in music. Hearing Bohemian Rhapsody when my friend showed me Wayne's World when I was young opened me up to a whole new world of music. That led me to David Bowie (via Under Pressure), which led to new genres like Krautrock (e.g. CAN, Kraftwerk, Neu!) and ambient (e.g. Brian Eno). Lately I have been listening to a lot of pop and folk music from the Caucasus, particularly in Circassian languages, Chechen, and Ossetian, as well as Japanese City Pop music from the 1970s-80s (e.g. Toshiki Kadomatsu, Seaside Lovers, Anri, Omegatribe). My music library is big enough that people are still surprised to see that I carry an iPod Classic. How else am I going to store so much stuff? The cloud?

I also have an amateur interest in city planning. I took a couple of urban planning courses as an undergrad at Utah, and while it wasn't the career path for me, I maintain the interest. Since I am not, in fact, a city planner, this interest typically manifests in city building simulation games such as Cities: Skylines and Sim City 4.

Growing up in Utah, I developed a love of the outdoors. Even in Northern Utah, that love did not translate into skiing. Instead, I took up hiking. The Wasatch and Uintah mountains in Northern Utah have many great alpine trails, and Southern Utah is unbeatable for desert hiking. Southern Arizona is also a hikers paradise. Mount Lemmon is a nice retreat from the heat, and Chiricahua National Monument offers a unique landcape. Closer to Tucson are Sabino Canyon and Sahuaro National Park, which offer typical Sonora Desert landscapes and wildlife (think saguaros, ocotillos, roadrunners, the occasional javelina).