About Me

I am originally from Overland Park, Kansas. I know, who's really from Kansas. Not too much to do there but play sports (field hockey, basketball, track, soccer) and study. I studied Linguistics and Sociology at Stanford where my main academic interest was in looking at language, particularly African American English (AAE), and Black identity formation online and in person. Through volunteering I also became focused on the role AAE played in children's ability to access school curriculum.

My interests in AAE then led me to Massachusetts to work with Shelley Velleman and with Lisa Green and her Center for the Study of African American English (CSAAL) while pursuing a decree in communication disorders. After the ComDis grad program, I worked for a year as an SPL for kids and adults at Holyoke Medical Center where I was taught by the most dynamic and compassionate team. Every client was like a mini-case study that I wanted to carry out in full. Which made me realize that I missed designing and implementing research projects, and that I had many more looming questions about the structure and course of acquisition of AAE that I wanted to investigate.

So here I am now, to discover why I (and many others) can say things like "Why don't nobody want tea," what that says about the system of AAE, and to continue to partner with CSAAL to bring the academic discussions of AAE to teachers, clinicians, and students.