Annual Department Newsletter
Chair’s Message
Dear Students, Colleagues, Alumni, and Friends,
As we begin a new academic year, I am delighted to share our annual Department Newsletter. It represents a snapshot of the many accomplishments and exciting developments that have shaped our community.
From award-winning research to new leadership roles and innovative teaching initiatives, the Newsletter showcases the breadth and depth of accomplishments across the department last year, and also offers a glimpse of the impactful work to come in the current academic year.
Warm regards,
Alison Mackey, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Linguistics
Georgetown University
Faculty Welcomes and Transitions
Prof. Lara Bryfonski Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure
We are delighted to congratulate Prof. Lara Bryfonski of the Applied Linguistics concentration on her promotion to Associate Professor with tenure! This achievement reflects her excellence in research, teaching, and service. We are proud to have her on our faculty and look forward to her continued impact on our community and beyond.
Dr. Kris Cook Joins us as the New Director of Georgetown’s Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science
Last year, we followed a tradition in many Universities and brought the Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science into the Linguistics Department! This year, we are pleased to share more good news: Dr. Kris Cook has joined the Department as the new Director of the program in an Assistant Teaching Professor role. Kris earned her Ph.D. from Georgetown in May 2025 after completing her dissertation “‘Love languaging’: Case studies of second language investment, technology, and language-related episodes in multilingual couples’ text conversations.” We look forward to her work strengthening the undergraduate Cognitive Science Minor Program!
Welcome Francesca Di Silvio
Francesca Di Silvio
Please join us in welcoming Francesca, who joined the Department of Linguistics in March 2025 as our Department Administrator. Francesca brings deep experience in K-12 language assessment and educator professional development, with prior roles at the Center for Applied Linguistics and the American Institutes for Research. She is also a Georgetown alumna (M.A. in Linguistics; B.A. in Spanish). We are thrilled to have her in the Department!
Dr. Maša Bešlin Joins as New Postdoctoral Associate
Please join us in also welcoming Dr. Maša Bešlin as the new Postdoctoral Associate! Dr. Bešlin specializes in syntax and its interfaces with phonology and semantics, with an empirical focus on Slavic and Mayan languages. She received her PhD in 2025 from the University of Maryland, College Park. In the Fall semester, Maša will be teaching LING 8133 Seminar on Syntax, with a special focus on syntactic locality.
Departures
Dr. Jungyoon Koh Starts Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard
Warm congratulations to Dr. Jungyoon Koh (PhD, 2024, concentration in Sociolinguistics) who served as Assistant Teaching Professor in our department for the 2024-2025 academic year, teaching courses on topics such as social media discourse, discourse perspectives on human-computer interaction, and language and food. We are grateful for her time with us, and wish her well in her new position as Postdoctoral Fellow in Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning!
Farewell and Thank You to Dr. Danni Shi
We were also sorry to have to say goodbye this year to Dr. Danni Shi in her postdoctoral fellow role where she taught LING 5214: Eye-tracking in Second Language Acquisition. She continues with the department as a Visiting Researcher, and we wish her the very best in this role and in her future endeavors.
In Memoriam
Remembering Conor Sinclair
We are deeply saddened to share that Conor Sinclair, our former Department Administrator, passed away on August 10, 2025. Conor worked at Georgetown for 17 years supporting faculty, students, and staff with unfailing kindness, energy, and good humor. A bilingual speaker of German and English, Conor’s wide curiosity about cultures, languages, and faith traditions enriched our community. We remember him with gratitude for his service and with affection for his warmth and ready smile. Our thoughts are with all who knew and loved him.
Connor Sinclair with family
Faculty Honors and Awards
Professor Alison Mackey was honored with the Condé Nast Award, a recognition granted by Georgetown University’s College of Arts & Sciences. Awarded annually, the Condé Nast Award celebrates faculty who have demonstrated exceptional distinction in teaching, research, and service or leadership within the College. Professor Mackey’s citation notes her longstanding contributions to Second Language Acquisition research, her dedication to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, and her active role in shaping the academic life of the university.
Congratulations to Professor Deborah Tannen, who received the Neil Postman Award for Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association at their June 2025 annual meeting in Mexico City! This distinguished award recognizes exceptional individuals whose work bridges scholarly insight and public engagement—reflecting a commitment to thoughtful, impactful discourse.
Dr. Kris Cook is the recipient of the 2025 Faculty & Staff Career Champion Award of the Cawley Career Education Center, which recognizes faculty and staff who go above and beyond in supporting students’ professional development and career readiness. This student-nominated honor highlights a commitment to integrating career preparation into academic experiences, offering personalized support with resume writing, interview preparation, networking, and graduate school advising—empowering students in achieving their academic and professional goals.
Congratulations to Prof. Nadja Tadić who received the Top Paper Award in Language and Social Interaction at the 2024 National Communication Association (NCA) Conference for her presentation “Categorizing the self to stereotype the other.” This award recognizes outstanding scholarship and contributions to research on language, communication, and social interaction.
Prof. Ethan Gotlieb Wilcox received a Senior Area Chair Award at the annual meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics in Vienna, Austria, for his paper “Using Information Theory to Characterize Prosodic Typology.” This award is given to one outstanding paper in each conference track, recognizing roughly the top 1% of submissions out of more than 8,000 presented at the conference. Congratulations!
Research and Scholarly Contributions
Special Talks and Lectures
Prof. Lara Bryfonski was a plenary speaker at the Chicago Language Symposium in April 2024. Her talk was titled: Supporting teachers implementing task-based language teaching: Challenges and potential solutions.
PhD student Caitlyn Pineault and Dr. Lara Bryfonski were also both featured presenters on the TBLTea Video Series on the Task-Based Language Teaching Channel and co-presented a workshop for the Task Bank.
Prof. Marissa Fond was interviewed for Georgetown’s “Ask a Professor” series, in which Georgetown faculty members break down complex issues shaping our world. In this video, titled “This One Habit Can Lead to More Productive Conversations on Polarizing Issues, A Sociolinguist Says,” Dr. Fond discussed the role civil discourse plays in academic and social environments, and offered ideas on how to have conversations with people who may not always share your point of view.
Francesca Di Silvio and Meg Montee
Prof. Meg Montee presented a virtual talk for the University of Wisconsin—Madison’s Multilingual Learning Research Center’s speaker series (“Multilingualism for all? U.S. World Language Policies and Implications for Multilingual Learners”). She also presented as part of the Webinar Series Current Directions in Postsecondary Language Program Administration with Francesca Di Silvio based on their chapter “Language Program Evaluation” in The Routledge Handbook of Language Program Development and Administration.
In June, Prof. Cynthia Gordon and PhD student Kylie Lance (Sociolinguistics) co-presented their paper, “’I think my favorite official game was Uno’: Positioning, framing, and multi-layered socialization in an English language instructor’s YouTube family mealtime video” at the 19th International Pragmatics Conference, held in Brisbane, Australia.
Here they are pictured with Dr. Hanwool Choe (who earned her PhD from our program in 2020 and is now an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong) and a koala at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!
Dr. Hanwool Choe, Dr. Cynthia Gordon and Kylie Lance
Prof. Alex Johnston was invited to deliver a lecture at the University of Luxembourg on employability for graduate students in the humanities, sharing insights on career pathways, professional development, and opportunities beyond academia.
Professor Jen Nycz gave a talk titled The role of attitudes in dialect maintenance and acquisition by mobile individuals as part of the Accent, attitude, and language change symposium at the Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
Dr. Nycz also gave a public talk at Planet Word‘s first Language Science Fair in May, titled Catching Accents: How We Learn and Use New Dialect Features.
At the Diachronic Generative Syntax (DiGS) conference in Oxford this June, Dr. Ruth Kramer presented a co-authored paper with Chris Reintges on the morphosyntax of Coptic number. This project grew out of their collaboration in Paris during summer 2024, previously featured in our newsletter! While in Oxford, Dr. Kramer also visited the Ashmolean Museum, taking the opportunity to view the Egyptian stelae.
Earlier this year, Prof. Nadja Tadić gave an invited talk on “Reproducing exclusion in pursuit of mutual understanding” for the Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture (CLIC) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
In collaboration with Sociolinguistics PhD student Jing Xue, Dr. Tadić also co-facilitated a workshop and co-presented a paper on food talk in the language classroom at the 2025 Georgetown University Round Table.
Project Collaborations
Prof. Marissa Fond: ECo Impact Award and Planet Word collaboration
Prof. Marissa Fond, in collaboration with Dr. Rose Hendricks (Association of Science and Technology Centers) and Dr. Charlotte Vaughn (University of Maryland), received a grant from The Earth Commons, Georgetown’s Institute for Environment and Sustainability, in support of their project, “Frame the planet: What is ‘normal’ about climate change?”
In collaboration with the Language Science Station, a research hub based at Planet Word, an interactive language and linguistics museum in downtown Washington, DC, Dr. Fond and colleagues are investigating how framing manipulations (specifically, differences in social norms framing) influence people’s stated intentions to talk with family and friends on the topic of climate change.
In addition, by conducting this research at Planet Word with participants of all ages, the research team (including Georgetown Linguistics undergraduates Lyosha Genzel and Minsol Kim) engages museum visitors in conversations about language science, research methods, and climate messaging.
Most recently, Dr. Fond and research assistants recruited participants at Planet Word’s Language Science Fair, an event celebrating the 75th anniversary of the National Science Foundation. The data collection will continue to run through the summer.
Nathan Schneider Co-Hosts Inaugural SOLID Symposium
In March 2025, Dr. Nathan Schneider teamed up with the Georgetown University Law Center to host the first edition of the SOLID Symposium on Legal Interpretation and Data. This interdisciplinary event brought together scholars in law, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science to explore new empirical approaches to legal interpretation. Panelists tackled questions such as how ordinary usage and context shape meaning, which datasets and methods support textual analysis of the law, whose language is represented in legal negotiation, and whether large language models (LLMs) can be trusted to assess ordinary meaning.
Prof. Ruth Kramer participated in a collaborative writing retreat with co-authors in upstate New York’s Finger Lakes region, making strong progress on the forthcoming Cambridge monograph The Syntax–Morphology Interface, on which she is a co-author.
Top row: Sarah Murray, Aida Talic, Vera Gribanova and Lauren Eby Clemens; Bottom row: Heather Newell, Laura Kalin, Ruth Kramer and Bronwyn Bjorkman
Centers and Initiatives News
Assessment and Evaluation Language Resource Center (AELRC)
The Assessment and Evaluation Language Resource Center (AELRC), led by PI Prof. Meg Montee and Co-PI Prof. Alison Mackey, provides leadership, scholarship, and outreach in the practices of foreign language (FL) assessment and program evaluation to foreign language teachers, program administrators, and researchers in diverse educational settings. The AELRC currently holds two multi-year grants with a total of $987,000 in funding. In the last academic year, the AELRC events included:
East Coast Organization of Language Testers (ECOLT) 2024 Conference
The AELRC hosted its twenty-second annual ECOLT conference at Georgetown University (October 24-25, 2024).
The conference included a pre-conference panel convened by Prof. Meg Malone from ACTFL on the topic of developing a test of American Sign Language and a plenary presentation from Dr. Daniel Isbell from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Designing and Using Rubrics for Classroom Language Assessment:
The one-day in-person workshop provided language instructors with an overview of rubric design principles and supported them in developing tools for their own classrooms. Participants also learned about applications of AI for rubric development. The workshop was facilitated by Prof. Montee and doctoral student Caitlyn Pineault.
Korean Student Oral Proficiency Assessment (SOPA) Familiarization Workshop
This interactive virtual workshop introduced participants to the Korean Student Oral Proficiency Assessment (SOPA). This paired oral assessment is designed for use with students in grades PreK-8 and measures their speaking and listening performance. Applied linguistics doctoral students Eunae Kim and Yoon Hee Nho led the workshop with Prof. Montee.
Georgetown STARTALK TBLT-C
Last summer, the AELRC team was awarded a new NSA grant totalling $137k for a summer 2025 program for college students learning Chinese. STARTALK TBLT-C – a task-based instruction summer camp for learners of Chinese – was held July 2025.
Directed by Prof. Lara Bryfonski, and Co-Directed by Professors Meg Montee and Alison Mackey, taught by Qiaona Yu (Wake Forest University) and Di Qi (Georgetown University) and supported by research assistants Ian Tracey, Ifeoluwaposimi John-Idiagbonya, and Caitlyn Pineault, the course was designed and taught according to the principles of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), a research-based approach to language teaching and learning.
Notable Publications, Presentations, and Projects
Dr. Jennifer Nycz Publishes New Edited Volume
Professors Jen Nycz and Victor Fernandez-Mallet (Spanish and Portuguese) have published an edited volume Dialect Contact: From Speaker to Community-Based Perspectives with Georgetown University Press, exploring dialect contact from individual and community perspectives.
Prof. Lara Bryfonski Awarded Grant from the Initiative on Pedagogical Uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Last summer, Dr. Lara Bryfonski was awarded a summer documentation grant from the Initiative on Pedagogical Uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to document and share materials related to the final project on AI in LING 1000-Introduction to Language.
The materials were developed by Yang Janet Liu, along with Sue Lorenson, Travis Richardson, and Lara Bryfonski. Materials are freely accessible on the project website: linguisticsai.georgetown.edu.
The project was featured on CNDLS’s podcast “What We’re Learning About Learning” about innovating with AI in the classroom.
Georgetown Linguists Cited in Supreme Court ‘Ghost Guns’ Case
Dr. Brandon Waldon, Kevin Tobia, Dr. Nathan Schneider
Read more on Georgetown’s Discovery & Impact page!
A Georgetown team of linguists and a law professor celebrated a win this spring when their amicus brief was cited in the 7–2 Supreme Court decision in Bondi v. VanDerStok, concerning “ghost guns.”
Co-authors Dr. Nathan Schneider, Dr. Brandon Waldon, and Kevin Tobia used linguistic analysis to show that gun parts kits, based on their function, qualify as firearms. The Court upheld the regulation, requiring serial numbers and background checks, marking a landmark example of linguistics informing legal interpretation!
Professor Deborah Tannen Interviewed by the Washingtonian
In the August 2025 issue of the Washingtonian magazine, Prof. Deborah Tannen opened up about how her passion for language started in an engaging “First Person” interview by Sylvie McNamara.
Professor Tannen explains how training in English literature led to the insight that everyday conversation could be analyzed with the same rigor as close reading, drawing her into linguistics. The interview also revisits her 1990 bestseller You Just Don’t Understand and the continuing relevance of her perspectives on communication.
Student Activities & Awards
GU Ling at 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (“ACL”)
GU faculty, students, and alumni were among the 5000+ attendees at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (“ACL”), the flagship international conference for computational linguistics and natural language processing. Taking place in Vienna, Austria, July 27–August 1st, 2025, the event included presentations of published work at the main conference and associated workshops.
GU attendees: Tatsuya Aoyama (PhD’25), Lauren Levine, Siyu Liang (BA’20), Jessica Lin (PhD’25), Yang Janet Liu (PhD’24), Siyao Peng (PhD’24), Nathan Schneider, Wesley Scivetti, Shira Wein (PhD’24), Ethan Wilcox, Xiulin Yang, Amir Zeldes
Find ACL papers below!
Micaela Wells at Cognitive Science Society Annual Meeting
Undergraduate student Micaela Wells (BA Linguistics ’26) presented a poster at the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci), one of the premier international venues for research in cognitive science. Her project builds on work she completed at Georgetown’s Massive Data Institute. Being selected to present as an undergraduate is a remarkable achievement. She received high praise for her outstanding presentation.
Well done Micaela!
Student Conference Paper Awards
Evelyn Diaz-Iturriaga Wins Best Student Paper | ECOLT 2024
Applied Linguistics Concentration Ph.D. Candidate Evelyn Diaz-Iturriaga was awarded the 2024 East Coast Organization of Language Testers (ECOLT) Best Student Paper award for her paper “Language assessment literacy among Chilean English as a foreign language teachers: Comparing standards and practices.”
Upcoming Events
Save the Date for GURT 2026!
Dr. Alex Johnston is thrilled to organize and announce the 77th Annual Georgetown University Round Table on Linguistics (#GURT2026), taking place March 6–8, 2026.
This year’s theme, “Futuring Linguistics: Designing Content, Pedagogy, and Career Diversity for the Next 20 Years,” promises exciting discussions on the future of the field, innovative teaching, and expanding career pathways. Don’t miss it!
25-26 Department Talks and Events
Be sure to check out the exciting lineup of talks and events happening in our department this semester. From guest speakers to workshops and social gatherings, there’s something for everyone. Stay engaged and make the most of these opportunities to connect, learn, and grow!
View the Full List of Events
Recent Publications
Kramer, Ruth.
- Kramer, R., Marantz, A., Alexiadou, A., & Oltra-Massuet, I. (in press). Introduction to distributed morphology: Core components and the syntax–morphology interface. In A. Alexiadou et al. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of distributed morphology. Cambridge University Press.
- Oltra-Massuet, I., Kramer, R., Alexiadou, A., & Marantz, A. (in press). Introduction to distributed morphology: Morphology-after-syntax and beyond. In A. Alexiadou et al. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of distributed morphology. Cambridge University Press.
- Adamson, L., & Kramer, R. (2025). On O-constructions in Jarawara. In L. Clemens, V. Gribanova, & G. Scontras (Eds.), Syntax in uncharted territories: Essays in honor of Maria Polinsky. http://dx.doi.org/10.7280/S9J964DJ
Montee, Meg.
- Chapman, M., Montee, M., Wang, Y., West, G. B., Kemp, J. A., & Kim, A. A. (2025). Speaking task design and complexity and fluency features of adolescent English learners. Language Testing. Advance online publication.
- Gass, S. M., Mackey, A. & Montee, M. (2025). Input, interaction, and output in L2 acquisition. In B. VanPatten, G.D. Keating & S,. Wulff (Eds.) Theories in second language acquisition: An introduction (pp. 183-216). Routledge.
- Malone, M.E. & Montee, M. (2025). Program evaluation in world language education. In V. Russell, K. Murphy-Judy, F. J. Troyan, A.J. Moeller, K. Hines-Gaither. (Eds.) The Handbook of research in World Language Instruction (pp. 326–338). Routledge.
- Montee, M. & Di Silvio, F. (2025). Program Evaluation. In Brown, A.V., Crane, C., Dupuy, B., Ene, E. (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Language Program Development and Administration. Routledge.
Nycz, Jennifer
- Fernández-Mallat, V., & Nycz, J. (Eds.). (2025). Dialect contact: From speaker to community-based perspectives. Georgetown University Press.
If you are interested in supporting the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, we would like to ask you to please consider making a donation to help us sustain our mission of excellence in linguistics.
Donations to the Department of Linguistics can be made through this link.
Your generous contributions enable us to advance our research, enhance our educational programs, and foster innovation in the field of linguistics. We deeply appreciate your generosity. Please feel free to contact the Department Chair if you’d like to discuss a donation.
We wish everyone a wonderful rest of the summer, and we look forward to the coming 2025–2026 year.