I am a Lecturer in Linguistics in the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics within the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University. I hold a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Melbourne, and a BA (Hons) in Linguistics from Monash University. Before joining the ANU in 2021, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, based in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne and affiliated with the University of Melbourne Phonetics Laboratory and the Research Unit for Indigenous Language.

PhD, The University of Melbourne; B.A. (Hons), Monash University

My main research interest is the intersection of experimental phonetics and language documentation, and I am particularly interested in languages of the Pacific, Africa, and Australia. My current primary research focus is on the phonetics of Nafsan and related Southern Oceanic languages of central Vanuatu. I have also undertaken research on the phonetics and phonology of Lopit, an Eastern Nilotic language of South Sudan. I maintain an interest in research on the phonetic characteristics of English varieties in Australia, and in creole languages of the Pacific and Africa.

Available student projects
I welcome proposals for Honours/Masters/PhD research related to the following topics:

• Phonetics and phonology of Oceanic languages of Vanuatu
• Phonetics and phonology of Nilotic languages of East Africa
• Phonetics and phonology of contact languages in Melanesia
• Sociophonetics of English varieties in Australia and the Pacific
• Phonetic and phonological typology

Please note I am not able to take on any additional supervision for 2024.

Current student projects

Shubo Li, PhD Thesis (in progress), The phonetics and phonology of Nakanamanga, Australian National University.

Thomas Powell-Davies, PhD Thesis (in progress), Accent change in Tasmania, Australian National University.

Saurabh Kumar Nath, PhD Thesis (in progress), Language variation in a multilingual-multicultural space: The case of Assamese vowels, Australian National University. [associate supervisor]

Amani Salman, PhD Thesis (in progress), A sociophonetic investigation of English consonant clusters in the production and perception of nonnative speakers in Australia. [associate supervisor]

Past student projects

Naijing Liu, PhD Thesis (2023), Segmental and prosodic phonology and morphophonology in Tsum, a language of Nepal, Australian National University. [associate supervisor]

Yuchen Li, Honours Thesis (2023), Differential subject expressions in Lelepa: A quantitative investigation, Australian National University.

Zhe Yang, Masters Advanced Thesis (2023), A phonetic description of the Lelepa vowel system, Australian National University.

Sun Chao, Masters Advanced Thesis (2023), An investigation of syllable structure in Lelepa, Australian National University.

Shubo Li, Honours Thesis (2022), A phonological sketch of the Kufo language, Australian National University.

Thomas Powell-Davies, Honours Thesis (2022), Exploring Tasmania's place in Australian English regional variation through diphthongs, Australian National University.

Jieping Ma, Masters Advanced Thesis (2022), Asymmetrical extension patterns of kin-based address terms in Dali, Australian National University.

Coralie Cram, Honours Thesis (2020), Post-lexical intonation in Bislama, University of Melbourne. [co-supervisor]