I recently received my Ph.D. in Linguistics at UC Davis. I am currently working on projects investigating how individuals engage with voice-activated artificially intelligent (voice-AI) devices, such as Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri.
I was recently awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Dr. Georgia Zellou (PI: UC Davis Phonetics Lab, Dept. of Linguistics), Dr. Zhou Yu (PI: UC Davis Language and Multimodal Interaction Lab, Dept. of Computer Science) and Dr. Katharine Graf Estes (PI: UC Davis Language Learning Lab, Dept. of Psychology). Together, we are examining whether individuals engage with these devices in similar ways as they do with other humans — and the extent to which this varies based on the participants’ age and gender.
I am also currently collaborating with Dr. Zhou Yu (PI: UC Davis Language and Multimodal Interaction Lab, Dept. of Computer Science) on projects related to the Amazon Alexa Prize chatbot, Gunrock.
When I’m not researching, teaching undergraduates, or helping put on workshops, I enjoy kayaking on Sugar Pine Reservoir, camping in the Tahoe Forest, and slowly teaching myself Franz Liszt’s ‘Liebestraum’ on the piano.
