PhD Alumni 2005 - 2009

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2009 Linguistics PhD Alumni

Li Yang

• Dissertation: Re-evaluating and Exploring the Contributions of Constituency Grammar to Semantic Role Labeling
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Steven Abney
• Current Position/Title: International Project Engineer Microsoft Redmond, WA

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2008 Linguistics PhD Alumni

Hoiying (Katherine) Chen

• Dissertation: Linguistic Practices and Ideologies of Cantonese-English Bilinguals in Hong Kong
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Judith T. Irvine and Sarah G. Thomason
• Current Position/Title: Associate Professor and Director of English Language Centre, University of Macau

Lisa Marie Del Torto

• Dissertation: Ci Arrangiamo: The Realities of Shift-Maintenance Negotiation in an Italian-Canadian Community
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Robin Queen
• Current Position/Title: Instructor at Northeastern Illinois University and instructor in the Writing Program at Northwestern University

Gerardo Fernandez-Salgueiro

• Dissertation: Aspects of the Syntax of (TP-) Coordination, Across-the Board Extraction, and Parasitic Gaps
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Samuel D. Epstein and Acrisio Pires
• Current Position/Title: Associate Professor of Linguistics, Department of English, National Taiwan normal University

Vera V. Irwin

• Dissertation: More than just Ethnic. Negotiation of Ethnicity through Language among Russian German Re-settlers and Jewish Refugees from the Former Soviet Union in Germany
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Robin Queen
• Current Position/Title: Lecturer and Max Kade Faculty Director, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

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2007 Linguistics PhD Alumni

Rizwan Ahmad

• Dissertation: Shifting Dunes: Changing Meanings of Urdu in India
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Robin Queen
• Current Position/Title: Assistant Professor of Sociolinguistics, Department of English Literature & Linguistics, Qatar University

Christopher Becker

• Dissertation: Clausal and Nominal Agreement in Russian: A Unified Approach
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Acrisio Pires
• Current Position/Title: Library Technician, Ann Arbor District Library

Robert Felty

• Dissertation: Effects in Spoken Word Recognition of English and German by Native and Non-native Listeners
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Patrice Beddor and Jose Benki
• Current Position/Title: Speech Scientist, Nuance Communications

Catherine Fortin

• Dissertation: Indonesian Sluicing and Verb Phrase Ellipsis: Description and Explanation in a Minimalist Framework
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Samuel Epstein
• Current Position/Title: Associate Professor of Linguistics, Carleton College

Michael Marlo

• Dissertation: The Verbal Tonology of Lumarachi and Lunyala: Two Dialects of Luluyia (Bantu, J. 30, Kenya)
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Andries Coetzee
• Current Position/Title: Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Missouri

Wilfredo Valentin-Marquez

• Dissertation: Doing being boricua: Perceptions of national identity and the sociolinguistic distribution of liquid variables in Puerto Rican Spanish
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Lesley Milroy and Teresa L. Satterfield
• Current Position/Title: Assistant Professor of Spanish, Millersville University

Nancy Perez

• Dissertation: A Proto-Matlatzinkan Reconstruction
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Sarah G. Thomason
• Current Position/Title: Lecturer in Romance Languages and Literatures at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Yang Ye

• Dissertation: Automatic Tense and Aspect Translation between Chinese and English
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Steven Abney
• Current Position/Title: Product Manager in AI/ML, Apple

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2006 Linguistics PhD Alumni

Chandan Narayan

• Dissertation: Non-Native Speech Perception in Infancy and Adulthood: Perceptual Salience and a New Pattern of Development
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Patrice Beddor and Janet F. Werker
• Current Position/Title: Associate Professor of Linguistics, York University, Toronto, Ontario.

Jennifer Nguyen

• Dissertation: The Changing Social and Linguistic Orientation of the African American Middle Class
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Lesley Milroy and Robin Queen
• Current Position/Title: Student Services Coordinator, Linguistics, University of Michigan

Hamid Ouali

• Dissertation: Unifying Agreement Relations: A Minimalist Analysis of Berber
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Samuel Epstein and Acrisio Pires
• Current Position/Title: Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Wisconsin

Nicholas Pharris

• Dissertation: Winuunsi Tm Talapaas: A Grammar of the Molalla Language
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Sarah Thomason
• Current Position/Title: Election and Information Specialist for the State of Washington

Mark Sicoli

• Dissertation: Tono: A Linguistic Ethnography of Tone and Voice in a Zapotec Region
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Sally Thomason and Bruce Mannheim
• Current Position/Title: Assistant Professor, University of Virginia

Andrea Stiasny

• Dissertation: Acquisition of Clitics in Croatian and Spanish and its Implications for Syntactic Theory
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Acrisio Pires
• Current Position/Title: Lecturer in Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan

Ashley Williams

• Dissertation: Bilingualism and the Construction of Ethnic Identity among Chinese Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Lesley Milroy
• Current Position/Title: Lecturer, American Studies and Anthropology, University of Virginia

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2005 Linguistics PhD Alumni

Hee Soo Kim

• Dissertation: Causatives, Passives and Their Ambiguities in Korean, Japanese, and English
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Acrisio Pires and Marilyn Shatz

Aman Kumar

• Dissertation: Aspects of Hindi Syllable Structure
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: San Duanmu
• Current Position/Title: Computational Linguist at BCL Technologies

Chutamanee Onsuwan

• Dissertation: Temporal relations Between Consonants and Vowels in Thai Syllables
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Patrice Beddor, chair
• Current Position/Title: Instructor in Department of Linguistics, Thammasat University

Erik Schleef

• Dissertation: Navigating Joint Activities in English and German Academic Discourse: Form, Function, and Sociolinguistics Distribution of Discourse Makers and Question Tags
• Dissertation Chair or Co-Chairs: Robin Queen
• Current Position/Title: Lecturer (Assoc. Prof.) in English Sociolinguistics, University of Manchester