Education
National University of Singapore ('24-present)
PhD Candidate, English Language and Linguistics
Faculty of Arts and Social Science
Department of English Linguistics and Theatre Studies
Bilingualism and Language Processing Lab
Supervisor: Dr. Aine Ito
Research Interests: English orthography, English graphophonemics, English reading acquisition, English phonics and reading instruction, bilingualism, corpus linguistics
Modules included: Phonetics and Phonology, Advanced Psycholinguistics
University of Massachusetts Boston ('21-'24)
MA Applied Linguistics, English Foreign Language Instruction Concentration (GPA 4.0)
Modules included: Theories and Principles of Language Teaching, Methods and Materials in Foreign Language Instruction, Psycholinguistics, Phonetics and Phonemics, Usage-based Linguistic Analysis, Sociolinguistics
Field Experience Project: Researched the graphophonemic gaps in Kindergarten-Fifth Grade students at The Adelson School
Master Thesis: Frequency Distribution of Graphemic-phonemic
Correspondences of Vowels in English Children's LiteratureThesis Advisors:
Dr. Charles Meyer, Thesis Chair
Dr. George Mikros, Thesis Committee Member
Goucher College ('07-'11)
BA Business Management magna cum laude
Mount Saint Charles Academy ('01-'07)
High School Diploma National Honor Society
Research experience
National University of Singapore (Jan. '25 - present)
Department of English, Linguistics and Theatre Studies,
Bilingualism and Language Processing Lab
Designing stimuli and administering eye-tracking tests for an experiment studying the intersection between working memory and language prediction
University of Maryland, College Park (Jun. '23 - Aug. '23)
Hearing and Speech Sciences Department,
Language Development and Perception Lab
Designed preferential looking experiment on LookIt to study linguistic masking in two-year-olds
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology,
Neural Tuning of Reading
Attained Level II MRI safety certification from Maryland Neuroimaging Center
Assisted in MRI scans of participants reading lists of real and pseudowords
Invigilated Woodcock and CTOPP assessments to participants
Employment
The Adelson School (Jul. '21 - Jul '24)
Lower School Educational Specialist
Alongside Director of Academics, invigilated San Diego Quick and Core Phonics Assessments, to inform phonics intervention and curriculum development
Developed Third Grade phonics/spelling intervention resulting in 10% increase in learner performance on Scholastic Development Word Knowledge Inventory
Founded Lower School Public Speaking Club
Founded two Lower School phonics clubs (Junior Kindergarten and Kindergarten); utilized modified U.K. National Curriculum Letters and Sounds
Challenger School (Apr. '15 - Jun. '21)
Elementary Teacher
Kindergarten classes (50/50 split of L1 and L2 learners)
National Iowa Assessments: 90th percentile (2015 - 2019), 98th percentile (2018-2019)
As a reading literacy coach, guided first graders with reading delays to advance from 430L to 610L; guided late enrollment preschoolers to advance from limited graphophonemic awareness to Scholastic reading level B
Assisted Desert Hills Campus in opening a new elementary wing
Quantum College (Oct. '19 - Nov. '19)
ESL Teacher
In one-to-one lessons, trained recent Chinese immigrants (ages 3-6) in interactional speaking for admissions interviews at private Vancouver elementary schools
Developed intensive phonics course proposal for young, Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking L2 learners (ages 4-6)
Apollo English (Jun. '18 - Aug. '18)
Summer Academy EFL Instructor
Assisted Director of Studies in opening new Tan Mai campus; invigilated placement exams for approximately 200 learners and assigned them to leveled classes determined by age and language competency
Qualifications
Cambridge DELTA (2020)
Module 1: Pass with Distinction
Module 2: Pass with Merit
Cambridge CELTA (2017)
Pass A
Professional associations
American Association for Applied Linguistics
Linguistic Society of America
International Literacy Association
Singapore Association of Applied Linguistics
Awards
Eagle Scout (2006), Boy Scouts of America