ióka Bendickson: Háu Mitákuyepi. iókaduta emákiyapi dó. Hello my relatives. I am called iókaduta. You can shorten that to ióka. I am a first year student in the MITILI program. I am an enrolled tribal member from the Lake Traverse Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate. I am an L2 speaker of the Santee Dakota dialect. There are no official estimates of how many Dakota speakers are left, but I would guess there are less than 300 L1 speakers. I studied Dakota language at the University of Minnesota and graduated with my BA in American Indian Studies. I worked with L1 speakers to improve my proficiency. Then I taught beginning and intermediate Dakota courses at the UMN for a decade. Before coming to MIT, I worked with Dakota and Lakota language non-profit organizations on dictionaries, classes, and learning materials. My goals are to document fluent speakers, create materials for the language community, conduct research, and work towards total revitalization of the Dakota language. During my time in the MITILI program I want to learn about linguistics generally, and more specifically about syntax and morphology. I want to apply the knowledge I gain at MIT towards my goals of documentation and revitalization of the Dakota language. I like to cook, spend time with my family, attend Dakota ceremonies, and travel. Tókta akhé!
Mícheál Curtin [mih?l]: Beannachtaí an fhomhair oraibh! I am an Irish speaker and a first-year student on the MITILI program. Thus far, my career and training have been in applied theatre. For the last nine years I have been directing a drama education program for high school students in New York City, where I led a team of Actor/Teachers who use theatre as a teaching tool in public schools. In Ireland, I have led programming with elders and young people alike in support of the language revitalization movement there. I have an MA in Applied Theatre from CUNY. At MIT, I hope to gain skills that enrich my work in Ireland. I look forward to learning from other folks who have worked on revitalizing languages in other contexts. Im originally from Brooklyn, NY and enjoy archery, Survivor, running, and board games.
Mehment Can Dadan: Hi everyone, I am Can (he/him) with a [d?]. I am from Turkey and got my B.A. and M.A. in Linguistics from Bo?aziçi University. I am interested in phonetics and phonology, particularly in vowel harmony and stress. Other than linguistics, I enjoy watching films and talking/venting about them as well as photography. Nowadays, I am trying to learn how to play bass.
Churong Jin: Hi all! Im Jin, originally from Beijing, China. Im interested in semantics, and some topics that have been on my mind include neg-raising, event semantics, inquisitive semantics, and probability operators. Prior to joining MIT, I did my undergrad at UCLA in math and philosophy, and worked as an RA at the Meaning Lab at USC. Lifting, running, hiking, reading and playing video games constitute most of my life outside of academics, other than, of course, hanging out and going on spontaneous adventures with friends. Im currently most excited about branching out to areas of linguistics beyond semantics, and my side quest is to run the Boston Marathon before I graduate.
Ogloo Jurkhaichin: Im Ogloo, and Im originally from Inner Mongolia, China. My main interests are in syntax and morphology, especially the ways they interact with each other and with other components of grammar. Most of my work so far has focused on Mongolian, and Im interested in using data from Mongolian and related languages to think about broader questions in linguistic theory. Before starting the PhD program, I was a student in MITs Indigenous Languages Initiative, or MITILI, here in the department, so Ive actually already been around for the past two years. Im really excited to continue working on these questions and to explore some new directions during the PhD.
Rowan Levick: Hi everyone! I’m Rowan (they/them). I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and got my BA in linguistics from William & Mary in Virginia. I’m primarily interested in the phonetics phonology interface and experimental work with children and adults. I’ve done research on acoustic phonetics of nasals, vowel length perception in young children, and I worked for a developmental neurolinguistics lab at UT Dallas where we mainly studied individual differences in children’s word learning abilities. Outside of linguistics I play a lot of ultimate frisbee and enjoy glassblowing, cooking, and a good chat with friends.