Who I am.

Profile picture for webpage.

An educator. I have been teaching at the college level since Fall 2001, and I find this to be my calling. I feel extremely fortunate to get to interact with students in and out of the classroom, and I find seeing them grow intellectually and emotionally to be extremely satisfying.

A linguist. I studied linguistics at California State University, Northridge and the University of Southern California. My training is in experimental phonology, but I also work in language documentation, working with community members who arrived in the United States as resettled refugees. My current research and administrative work focus on capacity building for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in the field of linguistics. I also teach linguistics at Boise State University, but I am on sabbatical for the 2022-2023 academic year.

An immigrant. I moved to the United States from the Middle East with my family when I was 11 years old. This is the reason I have a first name that’s hard to pronounce.

A cat lady. My husband and I have had five wonderful furry feline companions. All five have lived with us in the residence halls on campus, and most of them love hanging out with students (and humans in general) and enjoyed serving as Pets in Residents (PIRs, pronounced ‘purrs’).

An amateur photographer. I enjoy taking photos and sharing them with others. I have taken a few classes, and won a couple of small local competitions.

What I do.

Download my Administrative CV or General CV . For downloadable publications, click HERE.

Professor of Linguistics

Teacher standing in front of classroom. Students sitting at desks looking at the teacher.
Photo credit: John Kelly, Boise State University

This year marks my 14th year as a linguistics faculty member at Boise State University. My areas of specialty in linguistics are phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, and language documentation. I also actively engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). In addition to classroom teaching, I am the founding director of the Mary Ellen Ryder Linguistics Lab, and the inaugural chair of the Department of Linguistics. I am currently on sabbatical for the 2022-2023 academic year.

Associate Editor, Language (Teaching Linguistics)

I am proud to serve as co-Associate Editor of the Teaching Linguistics section of Language, the flagship journal of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). Our section showcases innovative pedagogy in the field of linguistics, empirical studies on teaching and learning of linguistics in higher education and K-12, and offers reviews of linguistics textbooks. My co-Associate Editor, Dr. Kazuko Hiramatsu, and I recently received a National Science Foundation grant to co-facilitate a Faculty Learning Community on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in linguistics.

What I’m up to.

Photography Portfolio

I picked up photography as a hobby a few years ago, and I really enjoy taking and developing photos. I’ll try to share my photos here whenever I have new ones…

Flower Photography

In summer of 2020, I enrolled in an online course on the Art of Flower Photography, taught by Emma Davies. I have really enjoyed taking photos of flowers since then, and I have curated a series of 10 recent images and submitted them to be considered for the 2023 Blue Sky Pacific Northwest Drawers — a year-long juried exhibition in Portland, Oregon.

First Trip to the Oregon Coast

Street Photography in New York City

I was super fortunate to get to attend a 2-day street photography workshop led by Valérie Jardin. Here are some of my favorite shots from my time there.

Three men sitting on a park bench looking sideways.
View of street from Prince subway station on intersection of Broadway Blvd.
Woman in subway car - 3/4 profile looking at camera
A happy older gentleman wearing a colorful outfit outside his gallery in NYC
Image of NYC car and car lights through rainy car window
Woman under a white umbrella walking outside by a white garage under a street light. Taken through a car window with rain drops.
Young man sitting on steps drinking Coca Cola.

Birds of Prey

Boise is home to the Peregrine Fund‘s World Center for Birds of Prey, and in the Fall, they host Fall Flight shows to educate the public about the Peregrine Fund’s work and the birds themselves. I recently began volunteering at the WCBOP, but I’ve attended their amazing Fall Flights for several years. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the shows I’ve been to over the past few years:

My entries at the Western Idaho Fair

I entered a few of my photos at the Western Idaho Fair in 20. Captions indicate the category the photo was entered under. Asterisks (*) indicate first place prize in category.

Working (wo)men*
Sports*
Insects/Bugs
Birds of a Feather