All kinds of phenomena interest me, but I'm more interested in experimental science than theoretical, and more interested in pure science than applied. Theory is important, but I don't have much patience for drifting away from testability. Applications are important, but it's the big questions that get me excited.

My current research revolves around:

• understanding language typology as shaped by language learning, variation and change
• documenting the morphophonology of lexical tone in under-studied languages (Jinhua Wu and Gitonga)
• developing and evaluating linguistic and computational models of discourse structure

Other interests include computational modeling of psycholinguistic processes, applying quantitative corpus and experimental methods to cognitive linguistics questions, and emergence as the resolution of half the arguments philosophers ever had.

I've had significant linguistics coursework at three different southern California universities.

• In my undergraduate, I was a physics major at UCSB, doing a linguistics major just for fun.
• In the masters program at SDSU, I had quite a few computational and corpus linguistics classes with Rob Malouf, Eniko Csomay and Mark Gawron. I had a couple psycholinguistics classes with Soonja Choi too.
• At UCSD, I've had more core linguistics courses in phonetics and phonology (with Amalia Arvaniti, Sharon Rose, and Eric Bakovic), syntax and semantics (with John Moore, Grant Goodall, and Ivano Caponigro), as well as a couple more computational linguistics courses (with Andy Kehler and Roger Levy), some field methods (with Gabriela Caballero) and a couple psycholinguistics courses (with Robert Kluender and Rachel Mayberry). And I took the CHD seminar that Farrell Ackerman ran, so I've had at least one class with each of the current UCSD linguistics faculty.

At UCSD, I've acted as teaching assistant for LIGN101 Intro to Linguistics, LIGN174 Language and Gender, INTL101 Culture and Society in International Perspective, LIGN119 1st and 2nd Language Learning, and LIGN8 Languages and Cultures of America.

Before coming to UCSD, I taught EFL full time at Zhejiang Normal University: Oral English for the first and second year students in Chuyang Honors College, and English Writing for second and third years majoring in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.

At San Diego State, I taught Ling 101 (Intro to Language) and served as GA for Ling 420 (Linguistics and English) in Fall 2005. During the 2004–2005 school year I served as GA for the Looking Glass Neighborhood after-school program.