Hi! I'm an Assistant Professor of German Studies and a faculty member in the Interdisciplinary PhD program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT). I completed my PhD in German Applied Linguistics at Penn State and subsequently held the position of Assistant Professor of German at Kansas State University from 2012-2018.
My experiences with identity, authenticity, and multilingualism shape my research endeavors, which center around three interrelated strands:
- Language learning, identity and learner beliefs;
- Culture and intercultural learning, especially in study abroad;
- Qualitative research methods in German applied linguistics.
My projects' findings highlight the need for scholars and educators to better attend to the coordinated interactional work that speakers do in social interactions (e.g. "naturally-occurring" interactions, in interviews), the value of adopting an understanding of "authentic" language as encompassing patterns of language and meaning that are both recognizable within and across communities of speakers and that are appropriated as one's own, and the value of examining beliefs about and constructions of intercultural learning in order to better articulate what it actually is and how to assess it. See here for my contribution to the Tucson Humanities Festival 2020: "Study Abroad and Un(doing) Harm".