Yale linguistics hosts students from The Leadership Alliance

June 17, 2016

Two students, Shawntel Barreiro and Amber Lopez, will be working in the department this summer as part of The Leadership Alliance Mellon Initiative. They will be doing language documentation and historical work on the Algonquian languages of Southern New England under the supervision of Claire Bowern.

Amber Lopez is a current undergraduate Mellon Mays fellow at the University of New Mexico. She is studying Linguistics and Philosophy. A member of a local Albuquerque tribe, her main focus is language preservation, and is planning on earning her PhD in cognitive linguistics immediately following the completion of her undergraduate degree.

Shawntel is from South Central Los Angeles and is currently an undergraduate at California State University, Northridge. Shawntel is primarily interested in sociolinguistics, as well as cognitive linguistics. She plans to pursue a Ph.D. in sociolinguistics and ultimately become a professor.

Amber and Shawntel are among several undergraduate students conducting research in the department this summer. The others will participate in the Yale Grammatical Diversity Project and the Pama-Nyungan Lab’s annual Grammar Boot Camp.