Graduate Students

Our graduate students are performing research in all areas of linguistics. Learn about their interests and specializations.

Graduate Students
Image	Name	Biography
	Anusha Anand	Bio Coming!
	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
	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
	Hannah Catron	Hannah Catron is a PhD student specializing in historical linguistics. Her research interests include phonetics, dialectology, and language contact in Germanic languages. She earned her B.A. in Linguistics and German at the University of Iowa and worked for three years as a US Teaching Assistant in Austria through the Ministry of Education
	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 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 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 Ph.D. candidate in the Linguistics Program. His primary concentration lies in second language acquisition. His research 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 lexical and syntactic processing. Her dissertation project focuses on how degree of overlap modifies the cognate facilitation effect. More information about Danielle's research projects and her full cv. 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 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 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
	Blake Hedrick	Bio coming!
	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, D. Eric Holt, Scott Gwara
	Ruthanne Hughes	Ruthanne Hughes is a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics. 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. Ruthanne is deeply grateful to be a 2020-2021 recipient of the Russell J. and Dorothy S. Bilinski Fellowship. 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
	Paige Kuester	Paige Kuester is a PhD student with a focus on sociolinguistics. She’s interested in the ways that language and food intersect with different aspects of identity, including race and class. She received her BA from the University of South Carolina in English and Anthropology and her MLIS from the University of Illinois.
	Price L. Lassahn-Worrell	Price is a Ph.D. candidate focusing in historical linguistics with a secondary specialization in medieval studies. His current research is focused on the syntax/semantics interface in medieval-era Germanic languages such as Old English, Old High German, Old Saxon, and Old Norse and Celtic languages. 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 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 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 effect of raciolinguistic ideologies on the trajectory of English-lexified creole languages of the United States. His research interests also include language attitudes and notions of authenticity, authority, and access, 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 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. Major Professor: Elaine Chun
	Anyssa "AJ" Murphy	Anyssa (AJ) Murphy is a PhD student studying Historical Syntax. Her research interests include the syntax-semantics interface, particularly in the development of case and case-assignment processes. While her MA work is concerned primarily Classical Greek and atypical case-assignment patterns, her PhD work has been focused on the loss inflectional case in English, particularly in the Genitive. AJ works with Professors Dr. Stanley Dubinsky and Dr. Kurt Goblirsch. Currently she teaches Linguistics 300, Intro to Language Sciences. Major Professor: Stanley Dubinsky
	Peter Nelson	Peter Nelson is a Ph.D. student focusing in second/foreign language acquisition.
	Keunhyung Park	Keunhyung Park is a Ph.D. student focusing in syntactic theory. Major Professor: Stanley Dubinsky, Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva Committee Members: Anne Bezuidenhout
	Dawson Petersen	Dawson Petersen is an MA/PhD student, focusing on psycholinguistics. His research interests are in primarily in online language comprehension and experimental pragmatics.
	Paige Pinkston	Paige Pinkston is a 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. Major Professor: Elaine Chun
	Jenna Rees-White	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.
	Angelina Rubina	Angelina Rubina is an international student at UofSC. She is currently working as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the UofSC while pursuing a PhD degree in Linguistics (Second Language Acquisition). She got her MA in Linguistics in 2018 from the UofSC, and she has taught for the English Department, the Department of Linguistics, as well as at the International Accelerator Program at UofSC. Her current research interests focus on Russian and English morpho-syntax and pragmatics, the acquisition of Russian as a second or a heritage language, as well as the role of technology in second language teaching. Outside of research, Angelina holds a TESOL Certificate and has extensive experience in teaching English as a foreign and second language at all proficiency levels to both children and adults. Major Professor: Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva
	Shana Scucchi	Shana is a second-year MA Student specializing in Second Language Acquisition. Her subfield is in Teaching English as a Second Language, and her research interests include Technology use in the Foreign Language Classroom to facilitate communicative and sociopragmatic competence in non-native University ESL students. Shana spends her free time learning Korean, practicing yoga, and frequenting her favorite local haunt to study on their outdoor deck.
	Rok Sim	Bio coming!
	Lesley Smith	Lesley is a 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 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
	Sarah Wilson	Sarah Wilson is a Master’s student in Linguistics, with a concentration in Psycholinguistics. She received her B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research interests include language acquisition, lexical and syntactic processing, and language impairment. She is a member of the Aging Brain Cohort in the Aphasia Lab, headed by Dr. Julius Fridriksson. In her free time, Sarah enjoys equestrianism, hiking, reading, and foreign language study.
	Cheng Xiao	Bio Coming!