Meet the Team!

Principal Investigators

Andrew Carnie, Ph.D. Contact Dr. Carnie by email: carnie AT u DOT arizona DOT edu Visit Dr. Carnie's web page Andrew Carnie, Associate Professor of Linguistics is the principle investigator of the National Science Foundation funded Arizona Gàidhlig Syntax Project. He got his Ph.D. in 1995 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked at the University of California Santa Cruz, The University of Michigan, The University of Calgary, Harvard University, MIT and for the last 9 years at the University of Arizona. His interests center primarily on Syntactic Theory, with a special interests in Case, the morphology-syntax interface, phrase structure, and verb initial language. He is the author or editor of six books, including the popular textbook from Blackwell-Wiley: Syntax: a Generative Introduction, as well as numerous articles. Dr. Carnie has worked extensively on Irish through the years, but is thrilled to be able to return to his first language love Scottish Gaelic.

Muriel Fisher Contact Muriel by email: murielf AT u DOT arizona DOT edu Visit Muriel's web page Native Speaker of Scottish Gaelic, Research Scientist Sr.

Graduate Student Research Assistant (GRA)

Sylvia Reed Contact Sylvia by email: slreed AT u DOT arizona DOT edu Sylvia earned her B.A. in Classics from Carleton College (Northfield, MN) in 2005 and is currently a third-year grad student in the Linguistics Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona (M.A., 2008). Her main interests are in morphology (especially morphosyntax and verbal inflections), both theoretical and experimental, as well as language documentation and preservation. Currently she's working on tense, aspect, and mood phenomena in Scots Gaelic. When she's not doing linguistics, you can find her hiking, reading, cooking, drinking strong coffee, and traveling.

Research Staff

Kat Banks Contact Kat by email: kbanks1 AT arizona DOT edu Kat Banks is a junior in the undergraduate program at UA and is an Interdisciplinary Major focusing in English, Linguistics, and Latin. She plans on either attending graduate school out of state for a career in the field of publishing/editing, or working toward a doctorate in Linguistics at UA. As far as the field of Linguistics goes, she is interested in Phonology and Historical Linguistics; outside of the field she loves reading books of many genres, playing with the English language, traveling anywhere and everywhere, and enjoying life to its fullest.

Mikaela Bell Contact Mikaela by email: mjbell AT email DOT arizona DOT edu

Brian Berrellez Contact Brian by email: bberrell AT arizona DOT edu Brian first formally pursued fields in the physical and computer sciences but has immense interest in minds and expression. Language is such a pivotal medium for studying cognition, so Linguistics allows for studying competing interests. He is currently most intrigued by the broad fields of semantics and inevitably syntax while still quite open to others. Outside of formal studies, he continues to read about the mind for fun through other varying sources, especially philosophy, economics, marketing, psychology, politics, management, mathematics, (socio) aesthetics, and thoughtful arts / entertainment.

Jeff Berry Contact Jeff by email: jjberry AT u DOT arizona DOT edu Jeff Berry is a graduate student in the linguistics program at the University of Arizona, with interests in Phonetics, Phonology, Psycholinguistics, and Computational Linguistics. Jeff studied at the University of Utah as an undergraduate, where he earned degrees in Linguistics and Middle East Studies. Besides Gaelic, Jeff is studying how violations of phonological assimilation rules affect response times for phoneme recognition. Outside of academia, Jeff enjoys music, hiking, and relaxing with friends.

Chris Crawford Contact Chris by email: ccrawfor AT email DOT arizona DOT edu I am a Senior Undergraduate linguistics major with a focus in phonology, phonetics, and corpus linguistics. I have worked for three semesters under Dr. Adam Ussishkin on a project to create a digitized, searchable online dictionary for Maltese, preparing materials for psycholinguistics experiments on Modern Hebrew, as well as independent research in exemplar theory and articulatory phonology. I have also worked in the Douglass Phonetics Lab under Dr. Natasha Warner and Ben Tucker, performing acoustic analysis of English flaps as well as conducting psycholinguistic experiments on a variety of topics. I have worked under Dr. Diana Archangeli in the APIL (Arizona Phonological Imaging Lab) working on a self-directed project on the categoricity of English dark and light /l/. I traveled to a number of countries for recreation, studying language all the way, including England, Wales, Scotland, France, and Iceland. I spend the rest of my time writing poetry, creating experimental electronic music, constructing artificial languages, studying obscure languages for fun, and as the secretary/treasurer of the official undergraduate poetry club, the J. Alfred Prufrock society.

Ben Fletcher Contact Ben by email: ben7530 AT email DOT arizona DOT edu Ben Fletcher, Linguistics undergrad, Spring 08. I am originally from W. Palm Beach Florida, and moved to Arizona 3 years ago to finish my degree. I have a background in the Hotel industry and love watching documentaries. My linguistic interests are primarily in semantics/syntax, and philosophy of language. The semantics of Mandarin Chinese especially excites me.

Colin Gorrie Contact Colin by email: gorrie AT email DOT arizona DOT edu Colin Gorrie is a graduate student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona. He earned his B.A. in Linguistics from the University of Toronto in 2008. His main theoretical research interests are in morphology and syntax: Colin is currently working on a project concerning the crosslinguistic status of adpositions and abstract/morphological case. He has been involved with Celtic languages since 2005 both in research and language-learning. The bulk of this experience, however, has been with the Irish language, which makes the prospect of finally working on Gaelic especially exciting.

Nikki Helms Contact Nikki by email: blumchen AT email DOT arizona DOT edu I just recently became a linguistics major after 3 years as a Microbiology major. I have studied German for 6 years and Japanese for 2 years; the latter inspired my major change. I enjoy studying epidemiology, history, and psychology, in addition to (of course) linguistics. I plan to pursue a career in neurolinguistics. I also enjoy reading, baking, playing video games, and watching anime.

Cassandra Megli Contact Cassandra by email: cass0612 AT email DOT arizona DOT edu Cassandra is an undergraduate at UA majoring in Classics and Linguistics. She has a passion for travel and language. Her language studies include Spanish, Italian and Latin. Her linguistic interests include phonology and historical linguistics which she developed further at the LSA summer institute at Stanford in July 2007. She took interest in this project after an in-depth research project on Scots for one of her courses.

Ryan Nelson Contact Ryan by email: nelsonr AT email DOT arizona DOT edu Ryan Nelson is a first-year graduate student in the Linguistics Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona. He earned his B.A. in Linguistics and French at the UA, and joined the project in his senior undergraduate year. He is interested in theoretical syntax, as well as semantics and phonology-syntax interfaces. He also dabbles in philosophy and metaphysics, as well as various areas of dilettante interest. In his limited off hours, he can often be found playing pool at a favored watering hole.

Kendra Walworth Contact Kendra by email: kswalwor AT email DOT arizona DOT edu Kendra Walworth is a senior in the undergraduate program at the University of Arizona. She will graduate in May 2010 with a BA in Linguistics and a BS in Computer Science, as well as a minor in Arabic. In addition to her involvement with this project, she is also currently assisting in the preparation of a psycholinguistics experiment on Maltese with Dr. Adam Ussishkin. Outside of academics, Kendra competes in the hammer throw for the University of Arizona's varsity track and field team. In her free time, she likes to cook, listen to music, and play volleyball.

International Consultants

Dr. David Adger Visit Dr. Adger's web page Reader, Linguistics, Queen Mary College London), an expert in Gàidhlig and theoretical syntax and semantics.

Dr. Gillian Ramchand Visit Dr. Ramchand's web page Associate Prof., Linguistics, University of Tromsø, an expert on Gàidhlig and theoretical syntax and semantics.

Mr. Iain S. Mac a' Phearsain Visit Iain's web page RKUC fellow, University of Ulster. A teacher of Gaidhlig. He is also a poet and writer and journalist.

Mr. Boyd Robertson Visit Boyd's web page Senior Lecturer on Gaelic & Head of Gaelic Programme, Department of Curricular Studies, Faculty of Education, University of Strathclyde. Gàidhlig language instructor and expert in language education

Former Members

Andrew Darmitzel I am a senior undergrad in the linguistics department with a second major in East Asian Studies (China).  I have all of the basic coursework for the linguistics department with an extra focus on syntax and language and society, thought this is the first major project that I have been involved in.  I do a decent amount of translating of Chinese in my free time and I am learning to play the guitar.

Kelly O’Connor