About Me
I am a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
I wasn't always a linguist. As an undergrad at Williams College, I was an astrophysics major. In 1999 I participated in the Williams College Total Solar Eclipse Expedition to Rimnicu Valcea, Romania. I wrote my undergrad thesis on the star clusters h and chi Persei.
When I graduated from Williams, I was not convinced that astrophysics was my destiny in life. So I joined the Peace Corps. I spent two years as a rural health volunteer in northern Senegal, where I gained an alter ego as a Haalpulaar (Pulaar-speaking) person named Aysata Kan.
By the time I came back to the US, I had decided my destiny in life was to document endangered languages. In my five years at Berkeley, I've been making some headway on that goal. I do fieldwork on Badiaranke, a minority Atlantic language spoken in Senegal, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau. I also continue to work on Pulaar, the language that I learned in the Peace Corps.
Sometimes, I do things besides linguistics. My favorite non-linguistics author to read, in my copious spare time, is Anne Tyler. I also enjoy listening to folk music, classical music, and West African music, especially Baaba Maal, a Haalpulaar singer from Senegal. In 2004 Baaba Maal came to Berkeley - you can see some photos here.
I love hiking (or just walking) in beautiful places; I like biking, dancing, and traveling, particularly to the middle of nowhere. The most gorgeous places I have ever been are Zermatt, Switzerland (next to the Matterhorn) and Salina, Italy (where Il Postino was filmed). But if I could go anywhere in the world right this minute, I would go visit my Peace Corps village, Thiangaye.