Winter 2026 Newsletter
Department Highlights and Happenings
The Linguistics Department at Western continues to grow and evolve. We have a growing number of majors (almost 120!); a new pathway for linguistics majors to become high school teachers (the Linguistics, Literature, and Writing major); new research groups and labs; a new global learning program in Ireland, and so much exciting student research. We’ve also introduced new events that we hope will continue as annual traditions for our students and alums.
If you'd like to learn about upcoming WWU Linguistic events, join our email list.
See some of our favorite highlights below.
Student Spotlight
2024-2025 Outstanding Linguistics Students
2024-2025 Outstanding Linguistics Students
Anuk Centellas2024-2025 Department of Linguistics Outstanding Graduating Senior
2024-2025 Department of Linguistics Exceptional Student Awardees
Red Sheets and Ari Rose
2024-2025 Exceptional Student in Spanish-Linguistics Awardees
Rosie O’Malley-Knudson and Elyana Steinberg
2025-2026 Anne Lobeck Linguistics Student Scholarship Awardees
Lucy Wells, Kristen Saturday, Zoe Kelton, and Emily Wren
2025-2026 Denham Family Linguistics Student Scholarship Awardee
Peregrin Hunjan
2025-2026 Linguistics Student Scholarship Awardees
Madeleine Bordenet and Valerie Bertolet
2025-2026 Shaw Gynan Memorial Scholarship Awardee
Hayley Abella
Scholars Week
Scholars Week is an annual, week long celebration of Western Washington University's undergraduate and graduate student research.
Scholars Week Presenters 2025
Madeleine Bordenet
“Mock Language: Underlying Stereotyping and Language Ideologies”
Anuk Centellas
“Data Formatting and Plotting App for the Spanish LLRG”
Vera Livingston
“Exhaustive focus marking in Telugu”
Ari Rose
“Pronouns in Telugu - Proximity and Participation”
Sophia Scumniatoles
“Conversational Variability of Speech Tempo in Highland Puebla Nahuatl”
Linguistics Club
The Linguistics Club continues to meet weekly. This year they've played Sign, watched Arrival, learned some Nicaraguan Sign Language, discussed morphology, practiced with spectrograms, and so much more! They've collaborated with the Mixed Student Organization a couple times, sharing experience and knowledge of heritage languages and bilingualism.
Photo: Co-lead officers Maria Iliescu and Lucy Wells tabling for the Linguistics Club at the 2025 Fall Info Fair.
Faculty Spotlight
This year we welcomed Visiting Assistant Professor Sophie Eakins. This year she's teaching LING 204: Language and Society, LING 311: Phonetics, and LING 402: Pidgin and Creole Languages.
Her research interests include language contact & change, phonetics, and phonology. She is also a big fan of the museum Planet Word, located in D.C!
WWU at LSA 2026
Once again, WWU had a strong presence at the annual Linguistic Society of America Conference January 2026 in New Orleans.
Prof. Maura O’Leary presented her paper “Skills based grading made simple using Bloom’s taxonomy.”
Prof. Kristin Denham presented “Launching Teaching Resources and Innovations for Linguistics Library (TRILL): A workshop for prospective authors.”
Alum Madison Enis (‘22) presented “What Linguists Know and Your Team Still Doesn’t” as part of a panel on linguists in industry. Madi is an AI Product Architect for Wiley, and also does social media for Career Linguist. Samantha Prins (‘15), a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona, presented their research “Nominal Syncretisms in Algonquian: A DM Approach.” Lauren Schneider (‘14), Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Simon Fraser University, presented her research “Making do without prepositions: Exploring serial verb and applicative shared functions in Central Salish”.
Photo on left: From left, alum Madison Enis, Prof. Kristin Denham, alum Samantha Prins, alum Lauren Schneider, and Prof. Maura O’Leary.
Alumni Spotlight
Neal Digre
Neal Digre, ‘16, is using the machine learning and linguistics skills he learned at WWU in the $10 million XPRIZE Rainforest competition.
Claudia Liu
WWU Linguistics alum and current WWU Chinese program faculty, Prof. Claudia Liu, '22, and three Western students, Benjamin Lewis, Catherine Bodinger, and Finn Pignataro win second place in a study-abroad video contest.
Aron Finholt
WWU Linguistics alum Aron Finholt, '19, received his PhD in linguistics from the University of Kansas in 2024 and is currently a postdoc at the University of Potsdam.
Grace deMeurisse
WWU Linguistics alum Grace deMeurisse, '19, defended her PhD dissertation from the University of Florida this spring and will be working as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at Bard College this fall.
Events
Welcome (back) Social
Our Fall Welcome (back) Socials, established in fall of 2024, have been perfect for introducing new and returning linguistics students, faculty and staff. For the past two falls, colleagues and peers caught up, made connections, and enjoyed refreshments in our new Linguistics Student Collaborative Space on the first floor of Bond Hall. This space has become a favorite hangout and study spot for our students. There are homey furnishings including a sofa, chairs, and lamps, all donated by faculty. It is the new location for our food pantry complete with a mini fridge and a microwave which was just donated by one of our majors.
Linguistics students sitting around a coffee table filled with sweet treats at the 2025 Fall Welcome (back) Social.
Student-Faculty Reading Group
Linguistics students continue to facilitate our bi-weekly Student-Faculty Reading Group. Students and faculty meet to discuss articles that are unrelated to their current coursework. The articles chosen are generally for a more advanced audience, leading to deep and engaging discussions.
Libations with a Linguist
Our Libations with a Linguist events have been a major success, drawing a broad audience of students, friends, family, community members, and more. Rotating faculty present a topic of their choice to the public at various local venues.
Our winter 2026 Libations, held at Zeek’s Pizza in the Fountain District of Bellingham, featured Prof. Ginny Dawson. Her talk was titled, “G’day mate! How to sound Strine according to an Aussie linguist.”
In winter 2025, Prof. Kristin Denham presented "What do you know when you know a language? Revealing fan-f$*!ckin-tastic linguistic knowledge" at Ponderosa Beer and Books near the waterfront in Bellingham.
We hope you can make it to our next Libations event.
Ginny Dawson presenting "“G’day mate! How to sound Strine according to an Aussie linguist," at the winter 2026 LwaL event at Zeek's Pizza in Bellingham.
Kristin Denham presenting "What do you know when you know a language? Revealing fan-f$*!ckin-tastic linguistic knowledge" at the winter 2025 LwaL event at the Ponderosa in Bellingham.
Linguistics Open House and Undergraduate Research Celebration
In Spring of 2025, in collaboration with Western’s Alumni Association, we held our third Linguistics Open House and Undergraduate Research Celebration in the Bond Hall 4th floor atrium. These academic year end get togethers give us an opportunity to celebrate the amazing accomplishments of our students and allow our alums to reunite with their peers and professors. We’re planning our next Open House for this spring and would love to see you there! Keep an eye out for an invitation from Western’s Alumni Association.
Linguistics students pose for a picture at the spring 2025 Open House and Undergraduate Research Celebration event.
Other events
Metaphor, Culture, and Political Protest
January 21, 2026
"Metaphor, Culture, and Political Protest: How Metaphorical Language Shapes Protesters’ Understanding of Social Reality," A talk by Dr. Erdene-Ochir Tumen-Ochir.
Read more about Erdene-Ochir's talk
Scholars in the Archives
November 21, 2025
Scholars in the Archives featuring former Western Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics Dr. Sara Ng.
Lexicosyntactic coherence and complex verb morphology
October 22, 2025
"Lexicosyntactic coherence and complex verb morphology," with Dr. Edward Vajda.
Two types of [NT]s in Panãra
March 6, 2025
"Two types of [NT]s in Panãra: Implications for the native speaker and scientific communities," a talk by Dr. Myriam Lapierre.
Code to Canopy: From Western to XPRIZE Rainforest
April 17, 2025
WWU Linguistics alum Neal Digre discussed his unique career path after college.
DARLing Lab
A cohort of about a dozen students continue to work with Prof. Maura O’Leary in her Documentation, Analysis, and Revitalization in Linguistics Lab (DARLing). The lab is focused on Hän, a critically endangered language spoken in remote Alaska and the Yukon Territory by only five speakers. The DARLing Lab assists the Hän tribal community in developing language learning materials and resources.
Field Methods
Our LING 441: Field Methods course provides undergraduate linguistics students the opportunity to develop skills in linguistic fieldwork, including eliciting, recording, transcribing and analyzing data by working with a native speaker of a language unfamiliar to the students. In the past year, students conducted original research on Telugu with Sri Velpuri, who is a Telugu speaker and a graduate student in computer science at Western, and Hungarian with Western undergraduate student and native Hungarian speaker Lilla Carleton-Szigeti.
Hungarian Language Consultant Lilla Carleton-Szigeti points to Hungarian words written on a whiteboard during LING 441.
Telugu Language Consultant Sri Velpuri poses between Prof. Jordan Sandoval, left, and Prof. Ginny Dawson.
Ireland: History, Language, Power
Prof. Kristin Denham introduced a new Linguistics focused study abroad program in the summer of 2025. In Ireland: History, Language, Power students spent two weeks in the Donegal Gaeltacht of Gaoth Dobhair, learning Gaeilge, staying with host families, immersed in language and culture, followed by a week at the University of Galway in Galway City. They learned about the suppression of the Irish language under British rule, and how the people have fought and continue to fight with heart and creativity to keep it alive. They saw how storytelling and music are not just traditions but lifelines for preserving both language and culture and we were inspired by the many resilient and powerful ways the Irish language is being revived today. Prof. Denham plans to offer this experience every other summer.
Photo: The Ireland summer 2025 study abroad cohort.
Donate Today
Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for our annual call for Give Day donations. The donations we receive during this time of the year enable some of the most valuable opportunities for our students to gain experience with research, networking, study abroad, conferences, and more.
Anyone who donates $25 or more to WWU Linguistics during Give Day 2026 (April 1-10, 2026) will receive a BRAND NEW unique WWU Linguistics MAGNET!