Current projects

Dual Immersion/Bilingual Education

Embraces the needs, goals, and outcomes of the growing Hispanic population in the US by creating dual-immersion initiatives in local schools, and documenting the effectiveness of bilingual education in producing linguistic and cultural gains in Spanish.

Language Variation and Change

Studies the ways in which language is structured and shaped by individual speaker characteristics (e.g. sex, age, level of education, socioeconomic status) and external factors (e.g. geographic location, political and language policies), as well as the ways in which language systems develop over time.

Second Language Acquisition

Investigates the cognitive, maturational, and situational constraints on the development of adult-acquired speech in both naturalistic and instructed settings.