Last updated June 12, 2026.
Employment and education
- 2015-present. Associate Professor of Linguistics, Dept. of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University.
- 2007-2015. Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Dept. of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, Michigan State University.
- 2008. PhD Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania.
- 2001. BA (Hons) Modern & Medieval Languages, University of Cambridge, UK.
Grants
As PI or co-PI
2021-2024. Building infrastructure for longitudinal speech data collection. National Science Foundation (NSF). PI: Betsy Sneller. Co-PI: Suzanne Evans Wagner.
2013-2015. The influence of higher education on local phonology. National Science Foundation (NSF). PIs: William Labov and Anita Henderson (University of Pennsylvania). Subcontract PI: Suzanne Wagner.
2012-2014. Language change and stability in the speech of young adults in Philadelphia. Michigan State University, Humanities and Arts Research Program (HARP).
As co-I, consultant, or advisory board member
2022-2024. Building and disseminating an app for ethnographic remote audio recording. National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). PI: Betsy Sneller.
Publications, presentations, and workshops/panels
Follow these links to my publications and presentations.
Workshops/conference sessions
2021. Spin-offs: The MI Diaries project as a starting point. (with Betsy Sneller). Digital Humanities LOCUS forum, Michigan State University, November 4.
2019. Catching interlanguage in action: When SLA meets language variation and change. (with Irina Zaykovskaya). Session convened at the Second Language Research Forum (SLRF), Michigan State University, September 20-22.
2015. Community-based studies of language change. (with Isabelle Buchstaller). Session convened at the International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE) 8, University of Leipzig, Germany, May 27-29.
2014. Panel studies: Challenges, food for thought and ways forward. (with Isabelle Buchstaller). Session convened at the International Conference on Methods in Dialectology XV, University of Groningen, Netherlands, August 11-15.
2012. Using physician-patient interviews for quantitative sociolinguistic analysis: a methodological checkup. (with Ashley Hesson). Session convened at Georgetown University Round Table (GURT) 2012, Georgetown University, March 8-11.
Graduate student supervision
PhD committee chair
- in progress. Annan Kirk.
- in progress. Mofart Ayiega. (co-chair with Deo Ngonyani).
- 2020. Mohammed Ruthan. Aspects of Jazani Arabic. (co-chair with Yen-Hwei Lin).
- 2019. Xiaomei Wang. Variation and change in Tianjin tone sandhi. (co-chair with Yen-Hwei Lin).
- 2019. Monica Nesbitt. Changing their minds: The impact of internal social change on local phonology.
- 2019. Irina Zaykovskaya. Perceptions of remarkable US English LIKE by native and non-native English-speaking young adults in Michigan. (co-chair with Susan Gass).
- 2018. Mingzhe Zheng. “To be assimilated and more like white”: A sociolinguistic study of Chinese-Americans in the “Asian city” of southeast Michigan.
- 2014. Ashley Hesson. Medically speaking: Co-variation as stylistic clustering within physician recommendations.
- 2012. Daniel J. Hasty. This might could help us better understand syntactic variation: The double modal construction in Tennessee English
PhD qualifying paper supervision
- 17 since 2010. See Students.
MA committee chair
- 2025. Emily Duggan. “Lesbian vs. Dyke: An examination of the differences in social meaning between two queer identity terms”.
- 2023. Xiayimaierdan Abudushalamu. Chinese governmental censorship and its influence on Uyghur people’s language use in an online show.
- 2011. Chun-Yi Peng. The placement of the prepositional dative construction in Mandarin varieties.
- by exam: Kirsten Bakken (2008) Lubna Al-juboori (2009), Alexander Mason (2016), Rebecca Senn (2020), Morgan Momberg (2020), Carli Hearn-Willard (2020), Arlo Kaczor (2022), Monica Obiri-Yeboah (2022).
Graduate committee membership
- current PhD: Adam Barnhardt, Jessica Shepherd, Connor Bechler, Millie Hacker, Cherilyn Wang.
- current MA: none.
- past PhD: Johanna Mechler (University of Duisberg-Essen), Yongqing Ye (2025), Yunting Gu (2025), Shannon Cousins (2024), Ye Ma (2023), Elena Sheard (The Australian National University, 2023), Naiyan Du (2023), Meisam Arjmandi (2019), Ho-Hsin Huang (2020), Chenchen Xu (2020), Drew Trotter (2019), Adam Gobeski (2019), Sayako Uehara (2018), Kali Morris (2018), Qian Luo (2018), Joe Jalbert (2016), Candice Scott (U Michigan, 2015), Mousa Qasem (2010).
- past MA: Hamlin Teng (2026), Emma Steward (2025), Jack Rechsteiner (2023), Alicia Parrish (2017), Patricia Lawrence (2015), Chenchen Xu (2014), Adina Williams (2013), Xiao Fu (2012), Kenneth Edgington (2012), Yi-Jen Huang (2008), Jon Bakos (2008), Andrew Fraser (2007), Misako Matsubara (2007).
Professional service
Editing and refereeing
- 2024-. Member, editorial advisory board, Language and the Human Lifespan (De Gruyter).
- 2023-2026. Associate Editor, Language.
- 2022-present. Member, editorial advisory board, Journal of Language and Aging.
- 2014-present. Co-editor with Isabelle Buchstaller, Routledge Studies in Language Change.
- 2014-2019. Area editor with Erez Levon, sociolinguistics & anthropological linguistics, Linguistics Vanguard.
- 2019. Member of review panel for US National Science Foundation, Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.
- Ad hoc reviews for:
- US National Science Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Swiss National Science Foundation.
- John Benjamins, Routledge, Wiley-Blackwell.
- Asia-Pacific Language Variation, Australian Journal of Linguistics, Canadian Journal of Linguistics, Journal of French Language Studies, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Journal of Linguistic Geography, Journal of Phonetics, Journal of Sociolinguistics, Language, Language and Linguistics, Language and Linguistics Compass, Language Variation and Change, Linguistics Vanguard, Nordic Journal of Linguistics, PNAS.
Conference steering committees
- 2024-2027. (elected) New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV), At-Large Member.
- 2016-2018. Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change (DiPVaC).
- 2013-2016. International Conference on Methods in Dialectology.
Service to Michigan State University
Committee chairship and leadership
- 2025-2026. Associate Chair for Graduate Studies, Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures.
- 2021-2022, 2025-2026. Department Graduate Committee, chair.
- 2020-2022. Associate Chair for Graduate Studies and Research, Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures.
- 2019-2020. Linguistics tenure track search committee, chair.
- 2018-2023. Director of Graduate Studies for Linguistics.
- 2018-2019. Linguistics program convener/co-ordinator.
- 2018. Linguistics fixed term search committee, chair.
- 2018, 2021, 2025. Linguistics & Languages RPT committee, chair.
- 2017-2018. College of Arts and Letters Advisory Council, chair.
- 2015-2016. Linguistics co-convener.
Committee membership or ex officio membership
- 2024. Romance & Classical Studies department RPT committee.
- 2024. German program tenure stream search committee.
- 2022-2023. Department Graduate Committee.
- 2021-2022. Department Technology and Communication committee.
- 2020-2022, 2025-2026. Department Advisory Committee.
- 2019, 2020, 2021. Department RPT committee (3).
- 2018-present. Organizing committee for graduate program events, including R Bootcamp 2018, CALMS career event 2019.
- 2018-2023, 2025-2026. College of Arts and Letters Graduate Council.
- 2017-2021. Linguistics program summer fellowship sub-committee.
- 2017-2019. College of Arts and Letters Advisory Council.
- 2015-2021. Selection committee, Honors College, Office of National and International Fellowships (NIFS), for Marshall, Mitchell, Churchill and Rhodes awards.
- 2013-2015. University Committee on Faculty Tenure.
- 2011, 2014, 2019, 2020, 2025. Department Faculty Evaluation Committee.
- 2011-2012. Department Advisory Committee.
- 2009-2022, 2024. Linguistics program graduate admissions committee.
- 2009, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2026. Linguistics program fixed term or other search committee (6), of which affirmative action advocate for 1 .
- 2008-2009, 2011-2012, 2018-2019. Linguistics program tenure stream search committees (4), of which affirmative action advocate for 1.
Public outreach and education
- 2023-present. MSU Science Festival. MI Diaries. April.
- 2023-2024. MSU Grandparents University. Diary of a Michigan Kid. June.
- 2014-2019. MSU Grandparents University. Harry Potter and the Secrets of British English. June.
- 2022. East Lansing Public Library. Diary of a Michigan Kid. July and November.
- 2020. Conversations with CAL Alumni. MI Diaries research project. October.
- 2014. MSU Sharper Focus/Wider Lens. Panelist for What Unites Us, What Divides Us.
- 2012-2014. Hillel Day School, Farmington Hills. Created classroom materials on variation and change in modern English; arranged class visits to IAH 231c Roles of Language in Society.
- 2009, 2012. Allen Neighborhood Center, Lansing. British and American culture and language compared.
- 2009-2012. MSU World Languages Day. You say tomayto and I say tomahto: Britain and British English.