I am a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Arizona's Hispanic Linguistics program with a minor in second language acquisition and teaching. I am currently writing my dissertation about control in Spanish, looking at it as more than just a purely syntactic phenomenon and tying it to the analysis of null subjects in finite clauses. My other research interests include the acquisition and learning of Spanish by second language and heritage language learners, second language pedagogy, audiovisual translation, television studies, and student retention. Ultimately, I aim to help incorporate findings from linguistic research into second language pedagogy, as well as to find ways to better engage students of language classes through contextualized, meaningful tasks while at the same time helping students connect with their peers and succeed in other aspects of their growth as college students.
At the University of Arizona, I teach Spanish language and linguistics courses in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Additionally, I have tutored student athletes in math, Spanish, and linguistics courses with the Student Athletes Invested in Learning program at CATS Academics. In the past I have also worked as a tutor at various schools in the Tucson Unified School District and worked with the New Start Summer Program, helping to acquaint recently graduated high school students to the University of Arizona.