My Background

About me

I am an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU). I have a Ph.D. in linguistics at Ohio State University. My research interests are historical/diachronic linguistics, morphology, and language documentation, with an areal focus on Iranian languages. In an interview conducted for the LSA's linguistics StoryCorps, I heard someone remark, ``if you get to know a language, it will tell you its problems.'' This quote serves to underline my research philosophy. I believe that quality research develops from a deep understanding of languages and the communities that speak them, coupled with strong linguistic fundamentals. This belief influences the way I teach linguistics, integrating my students' diverse linguistic backgrounds into the teaching of core concepts, and it influences how I conduct research, constantly learning and studying diverse languages, advancing them steadily descriptively and theoretically.

Current Research Focus

I am currently working on the diachronic reconstruction of earlier stages of Gorani, Zazaki, and Kurdish. My approach differs from most works in Iranian historical linguistics by rejecting the top-down approach. I employ the "Neo-Grammarian" Comparative Method using data collected from fieldwork from current speakers of modern varieties. My goal is to reconsruct earlier stages of these subfamilies with the same level rigour and acurracy as scholars were able to achieve in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European.

Academic Employment

2024 - Present Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
2023 - 2024 Postdoctoral Researcher, Cambridge University, ERC Project: ALHOME: Echoes of Vanishing Voices in the Mountains: A Linguistic History of Minorities in the Near East
2021 - 2023 Linguistics Instructor, Metro Early College High School

Education

2021 Ph.D., Linguistics, The Ohio State University, Dissertation: The synchrony and diachrony of New Iranian nominal morphosyntax.
2021 M.A., Linguistics, The Ohio State University
2015 B.A., Linguistics with special honors and Japanese Language and Culture, The University of Texas at Austin, Thesis: Bilingual personalities phenomnon

Teaching

AU 2022 Japanese I, Teacher, at Metro Early College High School
AU 2022 Language Evolution, Teacher, at Metro Early College High School
AU 2022 Intro to Linguistics, Teacher, at Metro Early College High School
SP 2022 How to Learn a Language: linguistics for language learners, Teacher, at Metro Early College High School
SP 2022 Language Evolution, Teacher, at Metro Early College High School
SP 2022 Intro to Linguistics, Teacher, at Metro Early College High School
SP 2022 Japanese I, Teacher, at Metro Early College High School
AU 2021 Intro to Linguistics, Teacher, at Metro Early College High School
AU 2021 LING3901: Language Evolution and Change, Teacher, at the Ohio State University
SP 2020 LING3901: Language Evolution and Change (online), Teacher, at the Ohio State University
AU 2019 LING3901: Language Evolution and Change, Teacher, at the Ohio State University
SANSKRT5903: Intermediate Sanskrit, Substitute Instructor, at the Ohio State University
SP 2007 English: English as a Foreign Language, Teacher, at Salahaddin University, Erbil