People | CPLS Lab @ UCSB

Principal Investigator

Simon Todd

(he/him)

I am a computational psycholinguist with a focus on speech perception. A central theme in my work is the way that small-scale cognitive processes associated with in-the-moment listening can have large-scale, long-term implications for linguistic knowledge and behavior. To investigate this theme, my work combines computational modeling, psycholinguistic experiments, and large-scale corpus analysis.

Graduate Students

Cooper Bedin

(they/them)

Website

I study queer and trans language, mostly amongst English-using trans folks in the United States. I currently have projects looking at: the pronouns you guys and y'all, listener perception(s) of queer/gay voice, and trans-affirming statistical methods.

René Boye

(he/him)

I am a second-year Ph. D. student. I mostly use corpus linguistic methods to study grammatical variation. I also have a long-standing interest in foreign language learning. My research interests include corpus linguistics, computational linguistics, (comparative) syntax as well as language variation.

Chris Brendel

(he/him)

Website |

I am a Ph.D. candidate who applies computational and cognitive linguistic theories to understand language change. I work primarily with historical written corpora, particularly of Icelandic. My research interests include lexical access, evolutionary linguistics, computational phylogenetics, lexicographic data management, and linguistic approaches to literary analysis.

Cedar Brown

(they/them)

I look at trans inclusive language and online trans communities. I investigate changes regarding language/language practices in conversation with sociocultural linguistics, computational linguistics, sociophonetics, trans linguistics, raciolinguistics, and queer theory.

Karina Scheifer

(she/her)

I am a first-year Ph.D. student. I am interested in low-resource NLP and field linguistics. I have worked with Northern Tungusic, Siberian Turkic and Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, as well as Finnic and Basque languages. My research focuses on morphological complexity and language variation.

Ashvini Varatharaj

(she/her)

I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student. My primary research interests include taking an interdisciplinary approach to understanding language acquisition with the help of computational modeling, linguistics, and cognitive science. I am also interested in how information-theoretic methods can be used to analyze language change over time.

Yanlu Zhong

(she/her)

I am a second-year Ph.D. student. My research interests lie in psycholinguistics, corpus linguistics, and computational linguistics. Specifically, I am interested in using psycholinguistic experiments, computational modeling, and corpus-based methods to uncover underlying mechanisms of first and second language acquisition and processing. I am currently working on multiword sequences and how emotions predict language processing.

Marina Zhukova

(she/her)

Website |

I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student. I use computational and sociocultural linguistic methodologies, coupled with experimental methods, to study conversational AI, emoji perception and interpretation, and multimodal communication.

Undergraduate Researchers

Khang Dinh

(he/him)

I am a fourth-year Linguistics student interested in how the various correlates of tone interact with meaning, and how these questions can be meaningful to under-resourced language communities. I have secondary interests in applying linguistic research methodologies to music.

Undergraduate Research Assistants

Siddharth Chattoraj

(he/him)

Website |

I am pursuing a Statistics & Data Science and Theater dual degree and a minor in Language and Speech Technologies. I am interested in the intersection of data and language structure and development.

Shahil Patel

(he/him)

I am a third year Statistics & Data Science and Mathematics double major. I am interested in analysing the evolution of language over time using data science techniques.