People

Daniel J. Olson, Ph.D.

Lab Director

Dr. Olson is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Linguistics and the Director of the Purdue Bilingualism Lab. He is a faculty member in the  School of Languages and Cultures, affiliated with the  Department of Linguistics, and has a courtesy appointment in the  Department of Speech, Hearing, and Language Sciences. Broadly, his research focuses on the phonetics and psycholinguistics of bilingual populations. His primary line of research investigates both the outcomes of code-switching, as well as the underlying mechanisms that govern bilingual language separation and selection.  As a secondary area, he is interested in the cognitive mechanisms and pedagogical methods that facilitate the acquisition of second language phonetics.

Email Address: danielolson@purdue.edu

Bruno Staszkiewicz Garcia

Current Graduate Student

Bruno is a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Linguistics and Linguistics at Purdue University. His research interest is at the intersection of phonetics/phonology and pragmatics, with a focus on politeness and cross-cultural differences in speech act realizations. In his dissertation, he investigates the effects of contextual variables (power, distance, and imposition) on the production and perception of the prosodic correlates of requests and offers in Peninsular Spanish. A second line of research aims to extend the study of politeness expression via acoustic cues to other languages and bilingual populations.

Email Address: bstaszki@purdue.edu

Jessica Rohr

Current Graduate Student

Jessica Rohr is a Ph.D. candidate in German linguistics as well as a teaching assistant in the German department at Purdue University. She holds a Master of Arts in German linguistics from Purdue University. Her research interests in sociolinguistics include language and identity and language attitudes, and her pedagogical research interests include intercultural communicative competence in German and linguistics classrooms. Her PhD research addresses identity formation in bidialectal speakers of Swiss German.

Email Address: jrohr@purdue.edu

Yuhyeon Seo

Current Graduate Student

Yuhyeon is a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics at Purdue University. His research interests include cognitive hearing science and acoustic phonetics, focusing on bilingual crosslinguistic influence in speech production and perception. This line of research has two main scopes: long-term crosslinguistic influence over a lifespan and short-term crosslinguistic influence in situations like code-switching. His dissertation project investigates changes in the phonetic and phonological systems over a lifespan, including L1 attrition and L2 acquisition in Korean heritage speakers and long-term immigrants. A second, related project investigates the potential for cross-linguistic phonetic influence in different types of code-switching.

Email Address: seo86@purdue.edu

Alexis Zhou

Current Graduate Student

Alex is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Linguistics and a Teaching Assistant for various undergraduate linguistics courses. Her research interests include phonetics and phonology, second language acquisition, Chinese phonetics, and Japanese phonetics. Her current research focuses on the use of visual feedback training on L2 tone production for beginning-level learners of Mandarin. Future projects will extend this research to different suprasegmental features and will explore the use of authentic materials in visual feedback paradigms.

Email Address: atews@purdue.edu

Yi-Fang Cheng

Current Graduate Student

Yi-Fang is a first-year graduate student in the Department of Linguistics and a teaching assistant in the Department of East Asian Languages at Purdue University. Her interests include phonetics and bilingualism in general.

Email Address: cheng627@purdue.edu

Sage Morrison

Current Undergraduate Student

Sage is an undergraduate student at Purdue University currently studying Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and English. She is interested in pursuing business translation and the reformation of second language acquisition in the United States. She hopes to work within fields that utilize linguistic technology to improve the efficiency of translation and education.

Gage Mardlin

Current Undergraduate Student

Gage is an undergraduate at Purdue University majoring in English in a Global Context and minoring in Linguistics. He is also studying Japanese. Gage will pursue an English education career abroad, specifically in East Asia, after graduating in May of 2023. Gage is particularly interested in language acquisition and bilingualism, as a means to better design and deliver a second language curriculum.

Santiago Parra

Former Lab Affiliate

Santiago is a second year MA student in the Department of Linguistics and a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. His research focuses on the acquisition and teaching of pronunciation in bilingual speakers. Currently, he is examining the effect of visual feedback on pronunciation in L2 English -- L1 Spanish learners. In his free time, he loves learning other languages, going to the gym, and reading books.

Email Address: parras@purdue.edu

Heather Offerman, Ph.D.

Former Lab Affiliate

Heather is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Arkansas in the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Her research focuses on second language acquisition, phonetics and phonology, Spanish phonetics, and second language pronunciation. Her work primarily focuses on the effectiveness of pronunciation methods and practices on second language learner pronunciation development. She teaches a variety of Spanish and linguistics courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Maria Yakushkina, Ph.D.

Former Lab Affiliate

Maria is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Humanistic Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, heritage language acquisition and teaching, language and identity, and pragmatics. Her current research focuses on the interconnection between heritage language use and transnational involvement among second-generation migrants in the US. Her research has been supported by a number of substantial internal and external grants, including two competitive, year-long research fellowships. Maria completed her dissertation, entitled Language use and Symbolic Transnational Practices: Evidence from 1.5- and second-generation Cubans in Miami, and is currently working on expanding her research with different Hispanic groups in the US. Maria enjoys teaching courses in Spanish language, second language acquisition, and assessment, as well as courses in linguistics and sociolinguistics.

Daniela Marinho Ribeiro Beard, Ph.D.

Former Lab Affiliate

Daniela is an Assistant Professor at Shorter University in the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Liberal Arts. Daniela's main research interests include the acquisition of phonetics and phonology, second/third language acquisition, and language pedagogy.

Ellen Deemer

Ellen is a recent Purdue graduate in Spanish and Linguistics and is currently pursuing a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics. Ellen participated in a study abroad program in Madrid for six weeks in the summer of 2018 where she studied at the Universidad Antonio de Nebrija. Ellen’s interests in linguistics include bilingualism, code-switching, language contact, psycho- and neurolinguistics, Spanish sociolinguistics, and second language acquisition.

Ross Plumer

Ross is a recent Purdue graduate in Spanish. Ross's interests in linguistics include Spanish sociolinguistics, particularly of Peninsular Spanish varieties, as well as code-switching. Ross has been involved with the PBL's recent projects on code-switching. This past spring, Ross studied at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Ross graduated from Purdue University with his BA in May 2020.