About

I've had the good fortune to be exposed to several areas of linguistics in my career so far. My interest in the field began with a passion for Indo-European philology, which quickly expanded into an interest in historical linguistics. While pursuing a B.A. with specializations in historical linguistics and semantics/pragmatics, I had the opportunity to work as an undergraduate research assistant for a law professor and sociolinguist. These experiences inspired me to pursue the interface of law and language. More specifically, I was drawn to the prospect of doing social science for people rather than merely about them.

As a linguist, I am primarily a semanticist with an interest in sociolinguistically-informed theoretical and experimental approaches. I also have an interest in psycholinguistics and computational methods. My legal interests include evidence, civil rights (especially employment discrimination), legal history, and criminal justice.

I generally group my work as into the three following categories:

1. The language of law: What can the systematic study of language in legal contexts reveal about natural language as a social and cognitive phenomenon?
2. The law of language: How do legal processes affect language usage and linguistic minorities in the U.S.?
3. Linguists in the legal realm: What experiences do linguists have when they interact with legal systems in the U.S.? How can linguistic insight be most effectively mobilized for the purpose of advancing justice?

You can learn more about my projects on the research page.