2024 Slate of Candidates

The slate of candidates for LSA Officers & Executive Committee Members is now available. LSA members will be able to vote on these nominees in the election that will begin in September of 2024. The newly elected leaders will begin their terms at the conclusion of the 2025 Annual Meeting.

Candidates

The LSA Nominating Committee and Committee on Student Issues and Concerns (COSIAC) have selected a slate of candidates for our upcoming elections. The nominees are:

Should LSA members want to place additional names on the ballot, the LSA Constitution provides a way to do that. If by July 31, 2024 – six months before the Annual meeting – five percent or more of the members have separately and in writing nominated any additional individual member for Vice President or the Executive Committee, and that member agrees to be presented as a candidate for the position in question, then that name shall be added to the ballot. The requirements for placing additional names on the ballot for student representatives to the Executive Committee are essentially the same, except that five percent or more of student members must send in any additional student member's name.

Additional nominations should be sent to membership@lsadc.org with the subject line "Additional Nomination for Vice-President," "Additional Nomination for Executive Committee" or "Additional Nominations Student Representative." The deadline for submitting additional nominations is 11:59 pm (EDT) on July 31, 2024.
 

Statement from the Vice President/President-Elect nominee

Alicia Beckford Wassink

Biography

Alicia Beckford Wassink is Byron and Alice Lockwood endowed professor in the Humanities and Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, with affiliate appointments in Data Science and Sociology. She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Michigan (1999). She has directed the Sociolinguistics Laboratory at UW for just under 20 years. Wassink is a past Ronald McNair faculty mentor of the year and teaching award nominee.  She is an external examiner at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jamaica.  Her research interests lie in the acoustic dynamics of vowel systems, socioethnic-dialect related bias in speech recognition systems, social network modeling, dialect contact, heritage language influence on the phonology and phonetics of underrepresented dialects, and phonological variation in Jamaican Creole.  

Her early research investigated phonological retentions from two Niger-Congo languages in the dialects of the post-creole continuum in Jamaica.  She has studied the emergence of sociolinguistic competence in children.  She is currently working on a project investigating how sociolinguistic knowledge might be brought to bear in addressing bias in automatic speech recognition. Another project investigates the association between social network structure and the transfer of phonologically long and short vowel features of Sahaptin into Yakama English.  A third study uses generalized additive mixed modeling to capture time-critical spectral detail in vowel trajectories and will investigate how listeners use this fine detail.  Finally, her longest-term research has focused on interethnic contact and phonological change in shaping the vowel systems of the American Pacific Northwest.

Wassink teaches courses in phonetics, sociophonetics, sociolinguistics, social network theory, pidgins and creoles, and programming for Linguists. She has supervised 34 doctoral theses. You can review her CV here.

Reports of her research appear in Speech Communication, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Journal of Phonetics, Language in Society, Language Variation and Change, Journal of English Linguistics, Speech in the Western States (Publications of the American Dialect Society), American Speech, and the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Her writing also appears in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes, The Routledge Companion to the Work of John Rickford, Northwest Voices: language and culture in the Pacific Northwest, Language and Identity, African-American Women’s Language, Sociophonetics: a student’s guide, and Language in the Schools.  She sits on the editorial board of Phonetica. She is a member of the LSA, AAAS, ASHA, the IPA, ASA, and the National Black Speech-Language Hearing Association. She currently serves on the executive committees of the LSA and the American Dialect Society.  Her record of service to the LSA includes the Nominating Committee, the Technical Advisory Committee, Linguistics Beyond Academic SIG, Committee for Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics, and instruction at LSA Summer Institutes. She serves as a member of the steering committee for the Cascadia Workshop in Sociolinguistics (CWSL). She has worked as a professional consultant for Microsoft Corporation.

Wassink has actively advocated for linguistics both publicly and institutionally.  At the college level, she has defended the unique position of linguistics as a humanistic social science on several university committees.  She is a member of the WIRED interdisciplinary research collective (Women Investigating Race, Ethnicity and Diversity).  She co-established the Diversity Committee in her department. In her local community, she serves as a facilitator for monthly dialogues around racial justice.

Her commitment to public scholarship is exemplified in her recent work on racial bias in automatic speech recognition systems, which was presented at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and drew the attention of National Public Radio and Microsoft Corporation. Her 2014 radio interview on Seattle’s KUOW was ranked the #1 story for that year, and has subsequently been re-aired.  Other appearances include KNKX and KBCS radio, and King 5 and KIRO TV.  

She is committed to advancement of research methods and data sharing within the linguistics community.   Her laboratory website provides a portal for linguists to access recordings and transcriptions from her multi-year Pacific Northwest English Study, including computer scripts for data analysis.  Her laboratory developed and hosts CLOx (Client Libraries Oxford)—an automatic speech recognition tool for the automated transcription of free-flowing speech.  For the public, she uses innovative tools such as interactive vowel charts, audio quizzes, and essays about localized sociolinguistic histories from a “Sociolinguists’-Eye-View.” 

Statement

I am honored and excited to be nominated for the role of Vice President/President-elect of the LSA. I have been a member of the LSA since my first year of graduate school (1992). In the LSA, I have found grounding for my professional identity in many ways. I’ve benefited from mentorship and networking. I have expanded my knowledge of a range of linguistic phenomena by attending, learning, and presenting at the annual meeting.  I’ve been part of a scientific community that shares an excitement about the human capacity for language. The LSA has helped me connect with wonderful people with whom I have established long-term friendships. As a Black woman who was the first in her family to earn a college degree, CEDL and BlacTOP have been important intellectual lifelines for me as I worked to carve out space for my own study of language ideology and phonetics in important linguistic varieties that were understudied in linguistics. I want this support for all linguists.

I will prioritize 3 areas as vice-president/president-elect.

I have been fortunate to work in my dream job—a tenured, academic position in a linguistics department where I can pursue both research and teaching.  However,  linguistics graduate students are finding increasing difficulty securing positions like this. They need mentoring and support finding career paths where they can pursue their linguistics interests, use their training, and have stable employment.  At the same time, linguists in industry, freelance, governmental, community-serving and other non-academic professions are doing critical work.  And, my consultancy in industry confirmed for me that industry needs more linguists.  Lack of representation and inadequate knowledge of linguistic structure has been at the heart, for example, of the failure of automatic speech recognition to function equitably for a range of English dialects. My own students have gone on to both academic and non-academic positions. I believe that young scholars and professionals are critical members whose ideas bring life to the LSA and will shape the organization’s future.  Their voices need to be centered, and their energy allowed to help fuel the organization. There is much the LSA can do to support faculty awareness of professional opportunities in non-academic contexts, helping them better mentor their students. And, there is much that the LSA can do to showcase such jobs—and the linguistics that people do in them—at annual meetings. The Linguistics Beyond Academia SIG is an invaluable resource (cf. the Linguistics Career Launch and Linguistics CareerCast) and we look forward to the anticipated LEXING sessions of the 2025 annual meeting. Supporting these endeavors will be one of my priorities.

Second, I have been collaborating with the LSA’s president and executive director on the new Language, Conflict and Peacemaking initiative, which will be launched in January at the 2025 LSA annual meeting.  This important project aims to promote LSA’s efforts to decolonize the discipline and build understanding around the impacts of language in both longstanding and current heated sociocultural and political spaces in our nation.  As the LSA, we can clarify how language plays a role in conflict, and give voice to those impacted. 

Finally, we have an exceptional team in the LSA main offices. They have improved our internal and external communications, enhanced operational transparency, and strengthened governance structures. All this is critical in an organization like ours that relies upon volunteer-led committees to do the essential work of the organization. The team has plans for increasing professional support, learning and member benefits. However, the LSA’s professional staff size is about one-third of that found in our sister societies (e.g., the American Philosophical Society). We simply cannot grow our organization and satisfy our members’ needs without more staff. Under the leadership of our executive director, the LSA has recently had a very successful capital campaign. I would like to establish a task force to work with our secretariat to find viable, effective, sustainable ways of generating revenue and further stimulating giving to the LSA. Put simply, our health and growth as a society requires it.

Statements from nominees for the Executive Committee

Eric Baković

Biography

Eric Baković received his BA in Linguistics from UC Santa Cruz in 1993 and his PhD in Linguistics from Rutgers University in 2000. He is now Professor and Chair of Linguistics at UC San Diego, where he’s been since 2000. He works on phonology and phonological theory, and most recently on computational approaches to phonology in collaboration with students and other colleagues. More information about Eric's work can be found on his website.

Eric is a lifetime member of the LSA, and has served the Society in several capacities. He organized a joint LSA/MLA Symposium on Open Access; he was the founding Associate Editor of the online-only section Language: Phonological Analysis that eventually became Phonological Data & Analysis, a platinum Open Access journal of the LSA; and he has served on the Committee of Editors of Linguistics Journals and the Nominating Committee. Eric has also attended six LSA Linguistic Institutes: first as a student member of the staff (UC Santa Cruz, 1991), then as a fellowship student (Ohio State, 1993, and Cornell, 1997), and later as an instructor of introductory (Chicago, 2015) and advanced (Davis, 2019, and Amherst, 2023) phonology courses.

Statement

It is a great honor to be considered for election to the Executive Committee of the LSA. I chose to become a life member of the LSA a decade ago as an expression of support for this organization that has provided me with so much support throughout my career, first as a student and then as a professor. I also appreciated the expansion of the LSA's support of its membership and of the discipline in positive ways that were (and still are) reflected in many of the activities of its various committees and special interest groups: the establishment of the CEDL travel grant fund, the introduction of new awards and other forms of recognition, the exploration of several forms of open access publishing, and the increased recognition that there is Linguistics Beyond Academia, to name just a few efforts that were particularly prominent to me at the time.

However, over the past several years, I believe we have all witnessed a growing disconnect between the LSA and important constituencies of its membership. This disconnect is centered around what it means to be or to feel included (or not included) in our organization and discipline, and good faith efforts to address it have challenged the LSA's approach to democratic governance. No matter how we each may feel about the disconnect and the challenges it has introduced, there is no denying the consequences that it will likely have if we don't address them: a further decline in participation and membership, which could ultimately mean the demise of the LSA itself.

Inclusiveness in the linguistics profession and democratic governance are two of the LSA's stated values. I share these values, and if I am elected I propose to address this disconnect by engaging another value that I share with the LSA: evidence-based decision-making. The EC, in collaboration with other committees and groups within the LSA, should systematically study the ways in which the LSA can better serve all members of the linguistics community. From there we must build on existing initiatives and programs, or create new ones, that embed inclusiveness and stability into the foundations of the LSA for the long term.

Professional organizations like the LSA play many vital roles for their associated academic disciplines, and for establishing and maintaining relationships with related professions both within and beyond academia. These roles are tall orders, regardless of the size and financial basis of the organization. The fact that the LSA has managed to do more with less for a full century is a testament to its solid foundations. To sustain it for another century, we need to examine and strengthen those foundations further.

Jessi Grieser

Biography

Jessi Grieser is a sociolinguist specializing in African American Language who has held tenured positions in the Department of English at the University of Tennessee and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Michigan. Her history with the LSA is long: while studying for her Ph.D. at Georgetown, she served as the summer intern at the LSA Secretariat, then continued for the organization as a consultant and front-end web designer, including building the editorial backend for Language. Since starting her faculty career, she has served on the LSA Demographics Committee, Web Committee, and helped develop the current LSA strategic plan. She is also a founding member of the LSA NSF grant for the Faculty Learning Community to expand the capacity for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Linguistics. She is also a member of the LSA's Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics.

Statement

I am standing for election to the LSA EC because I see us at a paradoxical juncture in the present moment. On the one hand, language has never been more important. With the increase in globalization and multiculturalism worldwide and especially in the US, and the corresponding way in which xenophobic and racist attitudes are often cleverly hidden in language, there is no discipline better suited than ours to serve the needs of unifying people and promoting understanding. The advent of large language model technologies mean that more and more people will be interacting, without awareness of potential downfalls, with the output of computer linguistic analysis, potentially to their detriment, especially if they come from minoritized populations. Linguistics, as a discipline, has never been more crucial than it is now.

At the same time, Linguistics, as a discipline, has never been more precarious than it is now. Universities are pulling back on their support of programs they see as not leading directly to career paths, shuttering the humanities and the humanistic social sciences even as the lack of understanding of our fellow humans leads to ever more division in social and political life. We are defunding graduate programs and undergraduate programs and whole departments and divisions despite the increasing urgency. They see us as unimportant, and this is not surprising.

We have hidden ourselves for too long. We have buried our genius for too long behind problems which even though we understand their significance, seem esoteric to outsiders. I believe that time has passed and it’s time for linguists to take up the mantle of shouting that we are the scholars who understand the most fundamental aspect of human experience—our ability to express ourselves through language. 

My vision for the LSA is one which serves Linguists: supporting scholars whose institutions devalue their scholarship, helping get the word of the scholars who are doing the best work understanding Language™ to the public who think they are making accurate assessments of language (but who are often perpetuating injustice). It is one that recognizes and celebrates that increasingly, the job of our undergraduate and graduate degrees is to train people to use the analytical lens of linguistics in service of the public good, in government, in law, in technology—and not only in academia. It is one which welcomes at our big table those who might not see themselves as “linguists” but whose work applies the lenses of our discipline whether they realize it or not. 

We do this through teaching. We do this through funding. We do this through our scholarship. But key is that we do this. I’m interested in finding ways to support the doers, no matter who they might be.

Savithry Namboodiripad

Biography

Savithry Namboodiripad is an Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she leads the Contact, Cognition, & Change Lab. She earned her PhD in Linguistics from UC San Diego and her BA and MA in Linguistics from the University of Chicago. Her research uses experimental methods to study syntactic typology and language contact, alongside asking how methodological and theoretical approaches might need to shift in order to do such work (e.g., Levshina, Namboodiripad et al. 2023). In addition, her personal and professional experiences and commitments have led her to study the field of linguistics itself, working with collaborators on topics such as harassment and bias (Namboodiripad, Occhino, & Hou 2019), as well as notions of decoloniality in various subfields (e.g., Gibson et al. 2024). Relatedly, she has a range of collaborations interrogating the utility of essentialist constructs such as "native speaker" in linguistic theory and practice (e.g., Cheng et al. 2021, Namboodiripad & Henner 2022. Birkeland et al. forthcoming in Language). 

Dr. Namboodiripad has been involved in the Linguistic Society of America’s Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics, most recently as co-Chair, has co-organized a workshop and working group on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Language Evolution, and is currently co-leading, with Dr. Ethan Kutlu, the ROLE collective, which works against essentialist notions of language in policy and practice, within academia and beyond; see videos from a recent symposium here. She has also presented on inclusion in teaching linguistics, particularly in fields where linguistic oppression is not typically centered as a topic of study, such as language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and typology (e.g., https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/webinar-centering-linguistic-diversity-and-justice-course-design).

Statement

I'm honored to have been nominated to run for election to the LSA EC. As our central professional organization, the LSA serves several crucial mentoring, advocacy, and resource-sharing functions, all of which fall under the general umbrella of community-building. Often, linguists can be the "only one" -- if not the only linguist in their department or company/organization, perhaps the only phonetician, or linguist of color, or linguist teaching about social justice. If elected to the EC, I would like to continue to work towards strengthening community in ways that serve our colleagues who would benefit from it the most.

Likely due in part to the work I've done with Dr. Corrine Occhino and Dr. Lina Hou on harassment in linguistics, I hear a lot about what isn't working in our field. This has motivated me to try to enact changes in the spaces where I have influence, while also grappling with the question of whether and how institutions can be a source of support to scholars who experience harm or are otherwise minoritized in academic or academic-adjacent spaces. Policies and structures can help carry the burden when we cannot rely on individuals alone -- this is something that institutions can do well. If elected to the EC, I am committed to advocate for concrete and practical changes which are informed by scholarship on academic and non-academic workplaces in general, as well as research on the field of linguistics in particular.

With my CEDL co-Chair Dr. Sarah Phillips, I have had the pleasure of working with our LSA admins as they workshop and implement structural changes designed to make our organization work for more of its members. If elected to the EC, I would like to continue this work to increase transparency and lower the barrier to participation, such that a broader range of scholars, within and outside of academia, feel a sense of ownership over and belonging in their professional organization.

Academic freedom has been increasingly under attack, and the LSA has endorsed statements supporting academic freedom, as well as having community-internal discussions on this topic. I would like to know what the LSA as an institution can do to meet the moment, particularly when it comes to opposing ongoing genocide of Palestinians and the rise in anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism in the United States, along with supporting linguists who have been fired or otherwise sanctioned due to their speech on this topic. The LSA has called for ceasefires in the recent past, and there is a depth and breadth of linguistic scholarship which informs many ongoing discourses around, for example, the language of dehumanization, hate speech, and language and power more broadly. I support the LSA’s endorsement of the American Historical Association’s statement on campus protests, along with the LSA’s Initiative on Language, Conflict, and Peacemaking; I look forward to learning more from our colleagues about this topic, and I would like to support ceasefire statements along the lines of those from the American Sociological Association, American Psychological Association, and American Anthropological Association.

Kristen Syrett

Biography

Kristen Syrett is a Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at Rutgers University – New Brunswick. She received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2007, and had an NIH-funded postdoc at Rutgers before joining the faculty in 2011. She has a co-appointment in the Center for Cognitive Science (RuCCS) and is a Faculty Fellow in the Rutgers Honors College. She directs the Rutgers Laboratory for Developmental Language Studies, where she and her students investigate child language acquisition and development, with a focus on experimental semantics and pragmatics in psycholinguistics. Her research is currently funded by the NSF. She has been an Associate Editor of LSA’s Semantics and Pragmatics since 2013, and served as an Associate Editor at Language. She is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Child Language, Linguistics and Philosophy, and the Cambridge Elements in Semantics series. She was previously an Associate Editor at Language Acquisition and now serves on the Advisory Board. She has also served as an NSF panelist. You can access her CV here.

Kristen has been an active and devoted member of the Linguistic Society of America since she was a graduate student, and is a life member. As the recipient of the prestigious Bloch fellowship, she served on the Executive Committee as the student member, and attended Linguistic summer institutes as a graduate student in 2003 at MSU and 2005 at MIT/Harvard. Since then, she has co-taught Acquisition of Semantics and Acquisition of Word Meaning at the Linguistics summer institutes at UC Davis in 2019 and UMass–Amherst in 2023. She organized the 3-Minute Thesis showcase at UMass in 2023. She has received the LSA Early Career award (2018), and the LSA Service award twice (2007, 2020). She is currently the Chair of the SALT Steering Committee, and previously served as the LSA liaison on that committee, helping to draft the LSA-SALT MOU. She has created resources for the LSA (including the popular FAQ “Why major in linguistics…and what does a linguist do?” with Monica Macaulay). She has chaired multiple LSA committees, including the Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics (now COGEL, where she worked with others to design and launch PUMP, a highly successful initiative that has since benefitted thousands of mentors and mentees) and the Public Relations committee (where she helps run the popular annual Five-Minute Linguist event). She has served on the Publications Committee, the Committee on Linguistic Institutes and Fellowships (CLIF), the Committee on Membership Services and Information Technology (COMSIT), the Data Issues workgroup, and the Strategic Planning Committee in 2013-2014, and is a member of the SOTL SIG.

Kristen is an advocate for women, gender, diversity, and inclusivity in Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Higher Education. She was the co-Director of the Language and Social Justice Initiative at Rutgers – New Brunswick from 2020-2023. She has promoted linguistics and inclusive language publicly in the media and in consulting work, including with the NCAA, NPR, and Google.

Statement

I am humbled and honored to have been nominated for this role on the Executive Committee of the LSA, alongside my amazing colleagues. The Linguistic Society of America has been near and dear to my heart since I was first welcomed into the field as a student years ago. Senior members of the field took me under their wing, and mentored and supported me in ways I will always be grateful for. I have been paying it forward ever since, mentoring and supporting students and early career researchers at my home university and in the field at large in ways both big and small.

Service in the LSA is, to me, a genuine pleasure and one of the most important ways we can contribute to the field. It is one of the few occasions in one’s professional life where you see almost immediate return on your investment. Proactive, collaborative committee work has the potential to positively impact a wide range of linguists in both the short and long term. That said, service in the LSA has not been without its frustrations over the years, and many of us have felt this acutely, some more than others. I have served with three different Executive Directors with very distinct leadership styles, and worked with a number of different Presidents. I have seen how easy it is for someone in a position of power and authority in the field and our Society to be a gatekeeper or a changemaker, to deplete energy, ignore or quash initiative, and deny opportunities, or instead to create new pathways, give voice to others, and curate and cultivate opportunities and growth. It is imperative that we acknowledge these struggles openly and work together to address them to ensure that the Society is representing and supporting our field.

I see the LSA moving in an increasingly positive direction by recognizing a much broader range of linguists who belong as a members, clearly communicating to administrations the relevance of language and linguistics in higher education, revisiting the value of being a member, dedicating our efforts to linguistics pedagogy and inclusivity in the classroom where language and linguistics are taught, and reimagining the contribution of the LSA and linguists in the world around us through dedicated efforts of outreach and education. I have also witnessed increased focus on professionalization and non-academic career preparation. I know that the Executive Committee plays a key role in this sea change. If elected, I intend to be an active participant, leader, and supporter of future leaders in each of these endeavors, continuing my commitment to this Society and the field of Linguistics.

Statements from student nominees

Shabnam Alizadeh Incheh

To me, language transcends mere word assembly; it embodies reflection. In the meticulous selection of words lies the interrogation of projected emotions. Being born and raised in Iran, becoming a self-reliant and independent woman was an ideal image for me throughout my childhood and adolescence. Striving for a better future did not come without hard work and determination, which led me to pursue a graduate degree.

My name is Shabnam Alizadeh Incheh. I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at the University of Connecticut, where I am advised by Dr. Adrián García-Sierra (expected graduation Fall 2029). Broadly, my research incorporates behavioral and electrophysiological approaches to study bilingualism using Event Related Potentials (ERPs). More precisely, I study how bilinguals' speech production (phonetic traits) and sentence processing (syntactic structure) are affected by cross-linguistic interference. In May 2024, I presented my study "Grammatical and Phonetic Insights from Heritage Spanish Bilinguals" at the Institute of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS) at the University of Connecticut; I am currently preparing the manuscript for journal publication.

Reflecting on my academic background, I earned a BA in English Language Translation and an MA in Applied Linguistics (TEFL) from Azad University North-Tehran, Iran. During my BA, I was engaged in many activities related to my field of study, all of which covered both translations (to and from Farsi and English) and teaching English as a foreign language to children and adults. After I earned my Master's degree, I joined the researchers' club at the National Brain Mapping Laboratory in Iran; I voluntarily engaged in translation activities for the Persian readership and a diverse range of audiences in academic outreach programs. There, I introduced the meaning and importance of neuro-psycholinguistics, a relatively new subject in Iran, to people of different ages, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds. This experience has brought me more empathy and awareness of how to communicate with people that are not from my community.

Consequently, to broaden my view about linguistics, I joined the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) in December 2021, drawn by the opportunity to deepen my understanding of linguistics and engage in collaborative endeavors within the field. Being a member has allowed me to sharpen my knowledge through access to a wealth of resources, including publications, conferences, and networking opportunities. Moreover, the LSA's emphasis on promoting collaboration aligns perfectly with my belief in the power of collective intelligence. By participating in LSA activities and initiatives, I have not only contributed to the advancement of linguistics but also benefited from the diverse perspectives and insights of fellow members. Overall, my membership in the LSA has been instrumental in both expanding my expertise and fostering meaningful connections within the linguistic community.

Since the start of my program in Fall 2023, I have been assigned as an instructor for the course "Introduction to Communication Sciences and Disorders" at UConn. Through this course, I introduce students to typical communication through the lenses of assessment and intervention and provide an overview of typical speech, language, and hearing development across the lifespan, as well as disorders of speech, language, and hearing as seen in children and adults. Shedding light on bilingualism, I introduce students to bilingualism in typical and atypical populations and how it is manifested in dual-language learners. Teaching at UConn has been an invaluable opportunity for me and has tremendously broadened my perspective on teaching within academia. Today's students are tomorrow's scholars, and I feel the urge to expand my students' worldviews so that they can tackle the 21st-century challenges by integrating their range of skills to become critical, creative, emotionally intelligent, and interdisciplinary thinkers.

As a Student Representative and Executive Committee member of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), my experience as an immigrant scholar working with diverse individuals has shown me the value of varied perspectives, enriching the collective learning experience. I am committed to promoting cultural dynamics within the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), encompassing values, beliefs, languages, and customs shaped by diverse experiences and histories. This includes appreciating the diversity of cultures, recognizing their historical contexts, achievements, and challenges, and advocating for equality at individual, structural, and cultural levels. Moreover, I emphasize the importance of acknowledging and respecting all forms of diversity, particularly neurodiversity in academia. Despite progress, the significant stigma surrounding neurodiverse populations persists, necessitating proactive measures to foster understanding and inclusion. My passion for inclusive education drives me to disseminate knowledge to all individuals, advocating for an environment where every member feels valued and supported.

I am deeply grateful and honored by the opportunity provided by the Linguistic Society of America. I am committed to paying forward this chance by using my position to pass on knowledge, promote the field of linguistics, advocate for equality, and enhance scholarly appreciation of cultural dynamics.

Thank you for considering my dedication and passion for the LSA's mission.

Christopher Legerme

I'm Haitian-Canadian, and I work on heritage Creole varieties from theoretical and experimental perspectives. My nomination for a more active role in shaping the Linguistics community stems from a desire to foster inclusivity and support for students from diverse backgrounds to unite in their love for language work. My passion for Linguistics stemmed from amazing Profs that I've met throughout my studies, like Keren Rice, Sali Tagliamonte, Marlyse Baptista, and Michel DeGraff, who have inspired me because of their commitment to enriching the communities that inform their work. As a Student Representative to the Executive Committee, one of my goals is to promote outreach through Linguistic Education because I believe that raising awareness about Linguistics in the classroom will lead to more diverse groups of students finding their way into the field. Some of my PhD work involved developing educational content for K-12 students. With the support of faculty such as Profs Maya Honda and Danny Fox, I've taught for various schools and programs, e.g., the MIT Splash and Spark initiatives. For community service, I've been involved at MIT, e.g., as an event coordinator for my dorm, an executive member of the MIT Black Graduate Student Association, and as a colloquium organizer and overseer of the colloquium nominations/voting system for the MIT Linguistics Department. For my involvement with LSA, this past January 2024, I presented my first in-person conference poster at the LSA Annual Meeting. I also presented a virtual talk at SPCL in 2021.