Bio

I joined the Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics at Carnegie Mellon as a faculty member in Second Language Acquisition and French and Francophone Studies in 2012 after completing my Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University.

My work focuses on the intersections between cognition, affect and identity in second/foreign/additional language development. Drawing on Vygotskian cultural-historical psychology, my work examines how opportunities for development are co-constructed between people (e.g., teachers and students) and how cultural artifacts (e.g., linguistic forms, semantic and pragmatic concepts) are internalized and, in turn, mediate cognition, affect and identity performance. Most of my work in carried out under formal educational conditions, including classroom discourse and interaction, concept-based instruction and dynamic assessment.

I teach and advise graduate students in second language acquisition theory, qualitative research methods, interaction analysis and Vygotskian theory. I also teach undergraduate French courses (all levels) as well as courses for our Applied Multilingual Studies program (e.g., 82-283 Language Diversity and Cultural Identity).

Department Member Since 2012