About Me
I often tell my students that career paths are rarely linear, and mine is no exception. My path to academic advising began when I was a PhD student studying sociolinguistics. Although I enjoyed studying language attitudes and identity, I faced a mid-PhD crisis when I realized that I preferred teaching and working with students over conducting research and writing academic articles.
While weighing the pros and cons of finishing the PhD, I was offered a staff assistantship as the undergraduate academic adviser for the University of Washington Linguistics Department. Although my introduction to that position was essentially trial by fire, I quickly realized that advising combined many of my interests and skills. I have built a 15+ year career in advising by pursuing as many professional development opportunities as possible, serving as the Chair of the Adviser Education Program and Advocacy Chair for the Association of Professional Advisers and Counselors, joining the National Academic Advising Association, and squeezing some education coursework into my graduate degree. Following that first advising role in the Linguistics Department, I went on to work for the Integrated Sciences Program, Undergraduate Academic Affairs Advising, the Earth and Space Sciences Department, and the Nutritional Sciences Program before finding my current home in the Human Centered Design and Engineering Department.
Academic Background
Academically, my training is in linguistics, specifically sociolinguistics. I received my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas in linguistics in 2005 and my Master of Arts from UW in 2009. I completed my Ph.D. in linguistics at UW in 2015. My primary areas of interest are sociolinguistics, language attitudes, folk linguistics, perceptual dialectology, sociophonetics, regional identity, and the Southern United States English dialect.
My Master's thesis, "(ay) monophthongization in Deer Park, Texas," can be downloaded here. For my thesis, I measured /ai/ monophthongization in terms of ΔF1 (change in vowel height over time), ΔF2 (change in vowel backness over time), and Offset F2-F1 (the difference between F2 and F1 at offset). One of the most interesting findings of my thesis research was that while the youngest age group differed from the middle age group on all three measurements, the middle age group only differed from the oldest age group in terms of ΔF1. This suggests that change in vowel height over time may be a particularly important cue for distinguishing between middle and oldest age group speakers for this linguistic variable.
My Ph.D. research focused on perceptual dialectology and regional identity. My dissertation, "Southern, Texan, or Both?: Southernness and Identity in Deer Park, Texas," can be downloaded here. This research explored perceptual notions of “southernness” by examining the perspectives of Deer Park residents regarding internal differentiation within the Southern dialect region and the meaning of Southern identity.
