Lab Affiliates
Dr. Karen Jesney
Karen Jesney is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Carleton University in Ottawa. She received her PhD in 2011 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her current research focuses on how gradient models of phonological grammar can be learned, and and how accurately these models predict the behaviour of children and of adults.
Dr. Ashley Farris-Trimble
Associate Professor (SFU Linguistics). Ashley uses experimental methods, primarily eye-tracking in the visual world paradigm, to examine the intersection of phonology and word recognition. Her research focuses on understanding how phonological processes impact word recognition in first-language acquisition, second-language acquisition, artificial language learning, and long-term speakers of a language. Additional research interests include lexical representations, weighted-constraint-based theories of phonology, and phonological processing in special populations, especially individuals with cochlear implants. Ashley is a Co-PI on two SSHRC Insight Grants with AMT.
Dr. Kaili Vesik
Kaili received her PhD from UBC Linguistics in November 2025. Her linguistic interests involve phonology, vowel harmony, music, Estonian, learning algorithms, and building computational tools to support theoretical research. Her current research focuses on algorithmic learning of phonology in Balto-Finnic languages. Outside of academia, you’ll most likely find Kaili singing, sewing, hiking, running, or skiing.
Dr. Claire Moore-Cantwell
Claire is a phonologist specializing in phonological variation, constraint-based models of phonology, learning algorithms, and the interface of phonology and psycholinguistics, especially speech processing and the structure of the lexicon. She received her PhD from UMass Amherst in 2016, and since then, has taught at Yale and UConn. From 2018-2019, she worked on Dr. Anne-Michelle Tessier’s SSHRC Insight Grant, studying early L2 acquisition of English. She is now an assistant professor in the linguistics department at UCLA.
Dr. Marie-Eve Bouchard
Marie-Eve Bouchard is a sociolinguist in the Department of French, Hispanic and Italian Studies at UBC. She received her PhD in 2017 from New York University. In the past few years, her main research projects investigated the variety of Portuguese spoken in São Tomé and Príncipe and among the Santomean diaspora in Portugal. Now, her new research projects focus on different varieties of Canadian French. Marie-Eve is interested in language attitudes and ideologies, language contact, language variation and change, identity, and migration, among many other things.
Dr. Gloria Mellesmoen
Gloria Mellesmoen (PhD, UBC Linguistics, 2024) studies non-concatenative morphology. Her main research focus is reduplication in Salish languages and she is also interested in questions related to First Nations languages and heritage language acquisition in a Canadian context.
Dr. Michael Becker
Michael Becker is a phonologist whose main focus is on word formation processes and how they are learned by children, adults, and computers. He is also interested in the documentation, analysis, and preservation of endangered languages.
Lab Alumni
Graduate student alums
Wendy Amoako
Roger Lo
Alexander Angsonga
Rennie Pasquinelli
Zara Khalaji Pirbaluti
Starr Sandoval
Undergraduate student alums
Akie Leesmith
Leah Brown
Danielle Lefebvre
Lauren Denusik
Edward Ho Hon Leung
In memoriam
Oscar
Oscar (July 2020-March 2022) was a very, very good lab member, remembered very fondly for his adorable contribution to Zoom meetings and general joie de vivre.