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| Winter 2010 |
I was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I fell in love with language early in life, I believe it was because I was exposed to a few languages early on. My grandparents were Deaf signers of American Sign Language, and spoke English, and my parents enrolled me in French Immersion.
I have had the pleasure of seeing more of Canada while completing my studies: I completed my Bachelors in Applied Linguistics at the University of Victoria, my Masters in Linguistics at the University of Toronto and am delighted to be back home while I work towards my PhD in Linguistics at the University of Manitoba. My research involves studying childhood bilingualism and language contact. My goal with this research is to inform and improve bilingual education and improve support for minority languages such as ASL.
In my current PhD research, I aim to answer the question, what role does American Sign Language (ASL) play in a Deaf child's acquisition of written English? I am working with ASL-English bilingual children to determine whether they activate sign language translation equivalents when reading. This research is a step towards identifying strategies employed by successful Deaf readers towards designing instructional strategies in Deaf education programs in Canada.
Outside of academics, I am a mom, and try to fit in swimming, yoga, and lifting weights regularly. I love travelling and look forward to travelling more with my family. I am also somewhat overly fond of office supplies and writing To Do lists, but I'm o.k. with that.
