Northern Illinois University
World Languages and Cultures
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Research Interests

My primary areas of study are second language acquisition and psycholinguistics. My research draws from the fields of linguistics and cognitive psychology in order to gain a deeper understanding of variation in linguistic development among adults acquiring a second language in natural settings. I employ both behavioral and neurocognitive (event-related potentials) measures of language development and processing. My research is designed to have both theoretical (models of language and learning) and practical implications (language curriculum and program design).

Areas of Specialization

• Individual differences in adult second language acquisition
• Second language development in classroom and study-abroad settings
• Online processing of second language
• Acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax

View Open Access Publications

Courses Taught at NIU

Taught in Spanish

• Beginning to intermediate level Spanish (FLSP101, 102, 201, 202)
• Spanish Grammar (FLSP 301)
• Spanish Conversation (FLSP 311)
• Introduction to Spanish Linguistics (FLSP 480/580)
• Spanish Sociolinguistics (FLSP 483/583)
• Spanish Dialectology (FLSP 487/587)
• Special Topics in Spanish Linguistics (FLSP 500)

Taught in English

• Applied Linguistics (various topics) (FLAL 483/583)
• Methodologies for Teaching Foreign Languages at the University Level (FLMT 597)

Education

• Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago, Hispanic Linguistics with Doctoral Concentration in Neuroscience
• M.A., University of Illinois at Chicago, Hispanic Linguistics
• B.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, Spanish with Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
• Current CV (PDF)