I am a PhD student in the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program, working under Dr. Jan Edwards in Hearing & Speech. My interests lie in the educational implications of language research, with a particular focus on supports for students who speak non-mainstream dialects. To this end, I'm working on the Toggle Talk project, studying the efficacy of an African American English code-switching curriculum. I hold a BA and MA in Linguistics from Yale University, where I was a founding member of the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project. I've also worked in a variety of roles in the field of education, including time as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Germany and as an Education Pioneers Analyst Fellow at the Newark Charter School Fund in Newark, NJ.

Areas of Interest

  • Language acquisition
  • Non-mainstream dialects

Degrees

  • MA
    Linguistics (Yale University, 2013)
  • BA
    Linguistics (Yale University, 2013)
Email
zach [at] umd.edu