Diane Lillo-Martin was elected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science to its 2025 class of fellows. Congratulations, Diane!
Awards, jobs, and promotions
Arano Defense
Akihiko Arano successfully defended his doctoral dissertation a while ago on April 30th. The dissertation was titled Expanding the scope of scrambling.
Congratulations, Aki!
While the traditional cutting of the defense cake was not possible due to the event being fully online, we hope Dr. Arano instead enjoyed a well-earned Japanese treat of his liking.
Bošković | Edward C. Marth Mentorship Award
Željko Bošković is this year’s Edward C. Marth Mentorship Award Recipient! This award is given to recognize extraordinary mentoring of graduate students. The selection committee noted that Željko’s “dedication to graduate students is legendary.”
As part of receiving this award, Željko was invited to give a presentation at the Ph.D. Commencement exercises held on May 12. He urged the graduates to use their intellectual responsibilities to “be bold” and speak up for justice.
More about Željko’s award can be found on p. 38 of the Commencement Program which can be found here.
Yagi Defense
Yusuke Yagi successfully defended his doctoral dissertation titled Dynamics, Assertability, and Presuppositions in Japanese and English disjunctions on February 28th.
Congratulations, Yusuke!
Yusuke during the defense:
Dr. Yagi cutting his well earned cake:
Dr. Yagi with his committee:
Yuan Defense & U of Chicago jobs
Xuetong Yuan successfully defended her doctoral dissertation titled Conditions on Conditionals: Evaluativity, Discourse Sensitivity, and Conditionals without if on September 27th.
Since then, Xuetong has been busy moving to Chicago, where she will be a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago. At the University of Chicago she is also joining another recent UConn linguistics alum and classmate, Si Kai Lee, who recently started his position as a postdoctoral syntax instructor there.
Congratulations, Xuetong! And belated congratulations to Si Kai!
Xuetong during the defense with her advisor, Magda Kaufmann:
Dr. Yuan cutting her well earned cake:
Lewis Defense & Job
Beccy Lewis successfully defended her doctoral dissertation titled Cross-linguistic variation in the function of heterogeneous plural marking and its theoretical consequences on August 30th. Since then, Beccy has already been busy with starting her new job as visiting lecturer in linguistics at UMass, Amherst.
Congratulations, Beccy!
Beccy during the defense:
Dr. Lewis with her committee after the successful defense:
Shengyun Gu | Job at Occidental College
Shengyun Gu, who graduated from our program in 2023, has began her tenure-track job as assistant professor in the cognitive science of language at Occidental College. Congratulations Shengyun!
Yoshiki Fujiwara | Job at Yamaguchi University
Yoshiki Fujiwara, who recently graduated from our program in 2022, has began his tenure-track job as lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities at Yamaguchi University. Congratulations Yoshiki!
Hiroaki Saito | Job at Mie University
Hiroaki Saito, who recently graduated from our program, has began his tenure-track job at the Faculty of Humanities, Law and Economics, Mie University in Japan. Congratulations Hiro!
Tieu | Glossa editor-in-chief
UConn linguistics alumna Lyn Tieu (PhD 2013, now at University of Toronto) has recently been promoted to co-Editor-in-Chief of GLOSSA alongside Johan Rooryck. Congratulations Lyn!