Organizing Committee

Jupitara Ray Co-organizer “I’m a fourth year PhD student with an interest in phonetics, phonology, sociolinguistic variation, and acquisition and attrition in diasporic communities. I can speak four Indo-Aryan languages (Koch Rajbongshi, Assamese, Hindi, and Bengali) along with a little Japanese. Outside of research, I love cooking, painting, going on hikes, and cats.“
	Hayat AlThagafi Co-organizer “I am a third-year PhD student in the Linguistics Program at Boston University. I am from a city in the southwest of Saudi Arabia called Taif in Makkah Province. My research interests are in phonology, syntax, natural language processing, and language documentation. Besides English and my native Arabic language, I know Russian, Persian and some Latin. My interests outside of linguistics are in history and fiction writing.“
Ousmane Cisse Travel Chair “Hello! I am Ousmane, currently in my fourth year in the PhD program in linguistics at BU. My primary research interests include Sociolinguistics, Syntax, Semantics, Ajami, and Mandinka language documentation. With a deep passion for the interface between Syntax and Semantics, and the West African Ajami, I dedicate myself to exploring the complexities of linguistic phenomena in Mandinka Ajami manuscripts. Apart from my academic pursuits, I find joy in expressing myself through drawing. I also have a passion for soccer and occasionally enjoy  playing table tennis in my leisure time.“
	Yuanyuan Zhang Hospitality Chair “Hello! My name is Yuanyuan and I am a third year PhD student in Linguistics at Boston University. I am interested in semantics, syntax, language acquisition, and language documentation. I speak Mandarin, English and some Cantonese. I’ve studied Spanish, Japanese, and Japanese Sign Language. I am currently interested in learning French. “
Liza Sulkin Tech Chair 1 “Hi everyone! My name is Liza (Lee-za, [li.zə], Лиза) and I’m a third year PhD student at BU Linguistics. My research interests include phonetics and phonology (especially for Slavic languages), computational linguistics and conlanging.  I speak English, Russian and some French, and I’m currently learning ASL.”
	Yarui Chen Tech Chair 2 “I am Yarui Chen, a second-year master student in the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program. I am interested in language acquisition and developmental psychology. I speak Chinese (Mandarin), my native language, and English. I’ve studied Spanish and Korean, and currently, I am interested in learning American Sign Language (ASL).“
Vasilis Michos Registration Chair “[həˈloʊ], my name is Vasilis and I’m a second year PhD student in Linguistics at BU.  I am curious about the manner and extent to which languages vary from one another in their syntax and morphology. I take interest in compounding, dialectal variation, nominalization, creoles and cliticization. I take interest in many and typologically diverse languages. Other than linguistics, I like playing the flute, watching soccer as a Blaugrana fan and playing board games.“
	Jackson Kellogg Volunteer Chair “Hello!  My name is Jackson and I’m a fourth-year Linguistics PhD student.  My interests are in phonetics and prosody, and my current research project is on lexical stress and intonation in Amharic, a language of Ethiopia.  I’ve also done research on Tagalog, Minangkabau, and Scottish Gaelic, and I’ve taken language classes in Spanish, Italian, Arabic, and ASL.  Outside linguistics, I enjoy SCUBA diving and writing fantasy books.“
Talia Liu Sponsorship & Marketing Chair “My name is Talia Liu, and I am a second-year PhD student in the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences program at BU. I have a clinical master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology. At BU, I work in the Communication and Neurodevelopment Lab where I am currently researching the impact of music exposure on infants’ language development. I an excited to bring some clinical representation to the BUCLD Organizing Committee!“
	Paris Gappmayr Interpreter Liaison Chair “I’m a fourth year PhD student in Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences studying ASL acquisition. I’m interested in bimodal bilingualism and modality-specific vs. modality-general properties of language. In addition to English, I am a heritage speaker of German, have studied French and Spanish, and am currently learning ASL.“