Scott Brewer

Scott Brewer is a Ph.D. student in historical linguistics, phonology, and dialectology. His current work focuses on consonant shifts in Germanic and their exponents in dialects of British English.

Major Professor:
Kurt Goblirsch

Keiko Bridwell

Keiko is a second-year M.A. student in Linguistics, specializing in sociophonetics. Her research interests include variationist approaches to dialects of American English, specifically rural Southern American English. She also has research experience in psycholinguistics and works as a Psychology TA for Dr. Robin Morris and Dr. Jessica Green. Keiko graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2017 with a BARSC degree in Linguistics.

Major Professor:
Amanda Dalola

Committee Members:
Elaine Chun

Douglas Carlisle

Douglas Carlisle is a student in the TESOL-certificate Program. He is interested in teaching high intermediate and advanced ESL/EFL students, perhaps abroad, upon completion.

Major Professor
Mila Tasseva--Kurktchieva

Jenna Chudzicki

Jenna is a current M.A. student, with a focus on sociolinguistics. She received her BA in English at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo in California. While there, she also completed a minor in Linguistics and received her TESL Certificate. In addition to her time as an undergrad at Cal Poly, she also completed her Secondary Teaching Credential in English. Jenna has taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade English Language Arts. She is looking to research variation and indexicality in California, as well as dipping back into Second Language Acquisition.

Brandon Cooper

Brandon Cooper is a Ph.D. student focusing in sociolinguistics.  He is also pursuing a TESOL Certificate.

Major Professor:
Tracey L. Weldon

Committee Members:
Elaine Chun, Sherina Feliciano-Santos

Brianna Cornelius

Brianna Cornelius is a Ph.D. student focusing in sociolinguistics.

Major Professor:
Tracey L. Weldon

Committee Members:
Elaine Chun, Sherina Feliciano-Santos

Drew M. Crosby

Drew Crosby is a second-year M.A./Ph.D. Student concentrating in sociolinguistics and Phonological Theory. His research interests include phonetic variation and change in Korean and Pacific Northwest English

Major Professor:
Amanda Dalola

Archie Crowley

Archie Crowley is a second-year student in the Linguistics Ph.D. program. Their research in sociolinguistics focuses on the relationship of language and gender, specifically in the trans and nonbinary communities. They are also interested in language use in online communities and how language is used to challenge/reinforce cis-normative discourses of gender.

Major Professor:
Elaine Chun

Maad M. El-Gali

Maad M. El-Gali is a fourth-year Ph.D. students in Linguistics at the University of South Carolina. His primary concentration lies in second language acquisition. His ongoing research mainly focuses on the efficacy of Written Corrective Feedback on improving the fluency and accuracy of written discourses produced by non-native English writers at the university level. His secondary concentration is discourse analysis. He conducted research on several topics within this field, among which were the coming-out stories of gay men from the MENA region and language ideologies towards minority languages in the United States.

Major Professors
Stanley Dubinsky, Sherry Warren

Danielle Fahey 

Danielle is a doctoral student in the Linguistics program. She earned her B.A. in International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and her M.S. in TESOL at McDaniel College in Maryland. Her research interests include language acquisition, bilingualism, and syntax and semantic processing. More information about Danielle's research projects and her full cv can be viewed at danielle.faheys.org

Major Professor:
Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva

Committee Members:
Anne Bezuidenhout, Nina Moreno, Dirk den Ouden

Elena Galkina

Elena is a Ph.D. student focusing on Second Language Acquisition and Phonetics and Phonology of Bilingualism. She uses acoustic phonetics methodology to examine how speakers of different languages acquire the sound systems of their second languages.

Major Professor:
Amanda Dalola, Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva

Committee Members:
Jiang Liu, Dirk den Ouden

Joseph Glass

Joseph is a first year M.A. student with a focus on Second Language Acquisition and Teaching English as a Second Language. He's interested in how new media can be used to facilitate foreign language learning.

Samuel Hackworth

Samuel Hackworth is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Linguistics Program, specializing in second language acquisition. Before this, he received his MA in Linguistics from UofSC in 2016 and served as an EFL teacher and teacher trainer in Rwanda with the United States Peace Corps. His research interests are listening comprehension, developing metrics to research non-technologically rich areas, and depth of processing. His non-academic interests include running, cycling, and all things Green Bay Packers.

Major Professor:
Nina Moreno

Michael Highlander

Michael's primary research interest is comparative Germanic linguistics with a focus on historical phonology, morphology and morpho-phonology, incorporating dialectal evidence. He has done work in the grouping of Germanic languages using phonological and morphological isoglosses. His dissertation is on the development of diphthongs in Bavarian German dialects . He is minoring in German Literature, and is interested in Medieval and 18th and 19th German Literature.

Major Professor:
Kurt Goblirsch 

Committee Members:
Amanda Dalola, Eric Holt, Scott Gwara

Ruthanne Hughes

Ruthanne Hughes is a third year Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics at the University of South Carolina. Her primary field is Second Language Acquisition and secondary field is Sociolinguistics. Her research interests include raciolinguistics, second and foreign language acquisition with a focus on EFL, teacher characteristics, and the intersection of theory and pedagogy. 

Major Professor:
Nina Moreno

Committee Members:
Elaine Chun, Amanda Dalola

Raymond Knight

Raymond Knight is a Ph.D. student focusing in second/foreign language acquisition.

Major Professors:
Paul Malovrh, Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva

Price L. Lassahn-Worrell

Price is a first year Ph.D. student focusing in historical linguistics with a secondary specialization in medieval studies. His current research is focused on the syntax and semantics of affixes in medieval-era Germanic languages such as Old English, Old High German, Old Saxon, and Old Norse. He also dabbles in dialect additive approaches to teaching English. He holds a M.A. in English from Idaho State University. Outside of academia, he enjoys acting, philanthropy, and renovating his house.

Major Professor:
Kurt Goblirsch 

Kanan B. Luce

Kanan is a first-year Ph.D. student in Linguistics, specializing in psycholinguistics. He is interested in experimental semantics and pragmatics, particularly in the processing of contextually sensitive expressions such as verb phrase anaphora.

Major Professors:
Anne Bezuidenhout, Amit Almor

John "Spud" McCullough

Spud is a third-year Ph.D. candidate, with an M.A. specializing in Endangered language documentation and conservation from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His research focuses on sociolinguistics, specifically the trajectory of English-lexified creole languages of the United States. His research interests also include language policy and attitudes, digital identity and community construction of marginalized groups, and lavender linguistics.

Major Professor:
Tracey Weldon

Committee Members:
Elaine Chun

Samantha Martin

Samantha Martin is a first year Ph.D. student in the Linguistics Program at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Her subfields are sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, with a focus on language and gender and language in activism. She graduated from SUNY Geneseo in western New York in 2018 with a B.A. in Anthropology and Spanish.

Anyssa  "AJ" Murphy

Anyssa Murphy-Dillon (AJ) is a second year M.A. student. Her research interests include Historical Linguistics, particularly in understanding case-marked NPs' syntactic behavior within Classical Greek, as well as the distinction between and development of semantic and syntactic case. She also has interest in Philosophy of Language, specifically Indexicals and other context-dependent language, as well as how we use language in possible-world contexts. She works with Dr. Beth Myers TAing Sense & Perception (PSY 450).

Major Professor:
Stanley Dubinsky 

Peter Nelson

Peter Nelson is a Ph.D. student focusing in second/foreign language acquisition.

Alecia Nichols

Alecia is a third-year Ph.D. student and a Presidential Fellow focusing in Psycholinguistics. Her research area of interest is the psychosocial realizations of gender in language, specifically as they relate to LGBTQ+ communities. Currently, her research is focused on the production and processing of English non-binary pronouns such as 3SG 'they'. Her previous research includes the acquisition of the passive in Spanish L2 learners, implicit causality in English reference processing, and diachronic variation in the use of Spanish subjunctive.

Major Professors:
Amit Almor, Elaine Chun

Keunhyung Park

Keunhyung Park is a Ph.D. student focusing in syntactic theory.

Major Professor:
Stanley Dubinsky, Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva

Committee Members:
Anne Bezuidenhout

Paige Pinkston

Paige Pinkston is a first-year Ph.D. student studying sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. She is interested in language and identity, race, politics, law, media, and the U.S. South. She is currently looking at youth political speech. She has a B.A. in Literature and an M.A. in Second Language Acquisition.

Angelina Rubina

Angelina Rubina is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of South Carolina while pursuing a Ph.D. degree in Linguistics (Second Language Acquisition) here. Her primary interest is in third language acquisition and various sources for linguistic transfer. Also, she focuses on Russian syntax and the acquisition of Russian as a second language.

Major Professor:
Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva 

Lesley Smith

Lesley is a second-year PhD student, specializing in Second Language Acquisition. She is interested in second language syntactic processing and psycholinguistic approaches to second-language research. She is also a member of the Neurolinguistics Lab, headed by Dr. Dirk den Ouden. In her free time, she enjoys doing yoga and talking to anyone who will listen about K-Pop.

Jiyeon Song

Jiyeon Song is a fourth-year PhD student in Linguistics program. She earned her B.A. and M.A. in English Language and Literature at Korea University. Her research interests include phonetics, phonology, sociophonetics, second language acquisition, and syntax.

Major Professor:
Amanda Dalola

Committee Members:
Elaine Chun, Jiang Liu

Bryanna Willis

Bryanna is a 2nd year M.A. student with a focus in linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. Her current research interests include identity creation and reinforcement through language and social media usage, particular in terms of national identity, race, and gender. Further, she likes to explore how ideologies about the above topics are connected to identity and circulated through social media.

Major Professor:
Elaine Chun