About
Knowing and speaking more than two languages is extremely common across the globe. Growing up bilingual has influenced my passion for what I study here today as a second year PhD student in Linguistics. Currently, I am most interested in researching how bilinguals process codeswitching (the mixing of two languages within or across sentences) in real time. Using electroencephalography (EEG) along with naturalistic experimental methods allows me to investigate some of the most controversial topics and questions in neurolinguistics: Is there such a thing as the Bilingual Advantage? Is codeswitching mentally costly, despite it appearing as a seamless process with minimal mistakes in syntactic structure? How does one's language experiences impact their use and processing of codeswitches, if at all?
In a more broader lens, I am interested in how the brain comes to utilize two or more languages within the brain, especially if the two languages are distant in their phonemic and syntactic structures. Throughout my PhD career, I hope to further investigate bilingualism with intersections such as the developing brain and second language learning, using a variety of neuroimaging technologies--including, but not limited to, EEG and fNIRS.
With the long-term goal of becoming a professor, staying in academia and the field of research means a lot to me. I love to teach others, but I also love to learn as well, as I believe we have a lot to learn from one another--beyond the breadth of academia itself.
I am a proud advocate for LGBTQ+, immigrant, ethnic minority, and low-income students.
