Alumni

Lobo Language Acquisition Lab Alumni

Marin Alemán Ortiz

Marin has a BA in Anthropology from USFQ (Quito, Ecuador). Her main research interests are language description and language documentation, particularly related to Ecuadorian Highland Kichwa, Afro-Esmeraldeño Spanish, and the Barbacoan languages. She is also interested in historical and queer linguistics.  

 BriAnne Amador

(MA in Linguistics, UNM)

Originally from San Antonio, Texas, BriAnne completed her MA in Linguistics at UNM. Her research interests include signed language phonology and signed language acquisition. She is working with Jill P. Morford and Naomi Shin on the Minority Language Acquisition project, coding and analyzing ASL demonstratives use in deaf children.

Aja Armijo 

(MA in Speech & Hearing Sciences, UNM)

Aja Armijo is currently a bilingual speech-language pathologist for Los Lunas Schools. She is currently assigned to Los Lunas High School and also serves as the secretary for the district’s union, NEA-LL. She evaluates and treats students ages 3-21 for a variety of speech and language disorders. She also serves on the equity council of Mark Armijo Academy and helps her family with the Armijo Family Scholarship Fund to raise money for scholarships for students entering the STEM and Education fields. 

Joseph Barela

Joseph was raised in Albuquerque, NM, and is currently pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Math. With dreams of working in Silicon Hills one day, his interests include Virtual Reality, Web, App, and Game development. He is specifically interested in advancing his skills as a web developer for the Lobo Language Acquisition Lab.

DeShawna Begay

DeShawna is Diné from Red Mesa, Arizona, and is currently pursuing a B.A. in Native American Studies and Population Health at UNM. The Navajo language is her passion. Although she is not fluent, she fully understands the language, and she is hoping to build her vocabulary. She wants to be able to use her language to communicate with her people and with her Holy Deities. She hopes to pursue a career in public health, emphasizing holistic healing in healthcare, where language is a vital part of it. 

 Isabella Bonura

Isabella is a CODA from a multigenerational Deaf family, she is in her senior year of the sign language interpreting program with a minor in speech and hearing sciences. Isabella became interested in linguistics and research on ASL acquisition during her junior year and hopes to make a valuable contribution to the lab during her time.

Rikki Farrell

(MA in Linguistics, UNM)

Rikki Farrell completed their MA in Linguistics at UNM, and they currently work as an interpreter in upstate New York. Originally from upstate New York, they came to UNM to pursue a degree in ASL-English interpreting and fell in love with linguistics along the way. Rikki is interested in studying signed languages and is currently assisting Jill Morford and Erin Wilkinson in their study of predictors of ASL and English proficiency in young deaf children. 

Amara Fuentes

Amara is a nursing major with plans to become a travel nurse. She enjoys outdoor activities, running, and fun crafts. She joined the lab at the start of the 2025 spring semester and assisted with bilingual (English-Spanish) data collection and processing.

Alec Goldberg

Alec is pursuing an MA in linguistics at UNM. He works for the Indigenous Child Language Research Center under the direction of Dr. Melvatha Chee, studying Navajo child language acquisition. His research interests are in the morphosyntax and semantics of the Navajo language. He is honored to work for ICLRC as a research assistant during his studies. As an undergraduate, he earned a BA in linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a BFA summa cum laude in art studio from UNM. He is originally from the Monterey Peninsula area of California.

Huitzili González

(BA, UNM)

Huitzili was raised in Albuquerque and is currently pursuing her B.A. in East Asian studies and Spanish. She is passionate about language acquisition and development as a means to preserve and celebrate all cultures and languages, including Nahuatl, the language that gave her the name “Huitzili”.

Luis Hinojosa-Cantú 

(MA in Hispanic Linguistics, UNM)

Luis Hinojasa-Cantú is currently a Middle School Teacher of English and Spanish in Monterrey, Mexico.

Luisa Hurtado Iglesias

(MA in Hispanic Linguistics and Portuguese, UNM)

Luisa received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Spanish with a minor in Portuguese from the University of New Mexico in 2020. She has also completed a dual M.A. in Hispanic Linguistics and Portuguese at UNM. As a native Spanish speaker, she is interested in language acquisition, bilingualism, and sociolinguistics. She is currently working on a project related to children's acquisition of direct object clitics.

Lyle Jeff

Originally from Crownpoint, New Mexico, Lyle is pursuing an MA in Linguistics. His primary research interests include bilingualism, child language acquisition, and signed language linguistics. He is also passionate about linguistics pertaining to signed language interpreting. Lyle's MA thesis focuses on Deaf children's referent selection in a shared interactional space and will inform the lab's Minority Language Acquisition project.

Evelyna Johnson

(BS, UNM)

Evelyna has received her BS in Signed Language Interpreting with a Minor in Fine Arts at UNM. Evelyna worked with the signed language research team, focusing on Hand Talk. Her goal is to become a signed language interpreter after graduation.

She is originally from Churchrock, a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. She is Navajo and part Mescalero Apache. Kinyaa'áanii nilį́ (She is of the Towering House Clan) Ta'neeszahnii yáshichíín (Born for the Tangle Clan) 'Áshįįhi éí dabicheii (Her maternal grandparents are the Salt People Clan), Tábąąhá éí dabinálí (Her paternal grandparents are the Water’s Edge Clan).

Taye Johnson

Taye Johnson is an undergraduate student majoring in Management Information Systems at the University of New Mexico. She is born for the Sleeping Rock People and the Bitter Water People. Her maternal grandfather’s clan is Towering House People, and her Paternal grandfather's clan is the Mexican clan people. Taye is originally from Pinehill, New Mexico. She is grateful for the opportunity to work at the Indigenous Child Research Lab as a research assistant. Her interests include the Navajo Language. 

Keda Kanye

(BA, UNM)

Keda earned her B.A. in Spanish and Linguistics. Her main interests are child language acquisition and cognitive linguistics.

Devin Lansing

Devin Lansing, originally from Coyote Canyon, NM, on the Navajo Nation, is Bit’ahnii born for a Bilagana, His cheii is Kinłichíí’nii, and his nalí is Bilagaana. Devin is an undergraduate at the University of New Mexico studying Special Education. He plans to earn a Master’s Degree in Special Education before pursuing a career as a Diné Language and Culture teacher.

Baahozhonii Largo

(BA, UNM)

Originally from Casamero Lake, New Mexico, Baahozohnii received a B.A. in Art History from UNM. Her research interests are bilingualism, language revitalization, and language acquisition.

Cormac League

(MA in Linguistics, UNM)

Cormac League, originally from the Los Angeles area, received a BA in Linguistics from the University of Southern California and completed an MA in Linguistics at the University of New Mexico. He is currently studying at the University of California, Santa Barbara, pursuing a PhD in Linguistics. As a researcher in the Indigenous Child Language Center, Cormac studied the prosody of child-directed speech in Diné Bizaad and other languages with vowel length distinction and lexical tone. 

Sarah Lease

Sarah Lease is a PhD candidate in the Dept. of Linguistics at UNM. In her research, she draws on usage-based approaches and acoustic methods to study language acquisition and variation among Spanish-speaking children and adults in the United States. 

Mariana Marchesi

Originally from Argentina, Mariana is currently pursuing a PhD in Linguistics. She has an MA in TESOL, and her research focuses on children's acquisition of minority languages. She is currently investigating child heritage speakers' production of demonstratives in Spanish and English.

Elisabeth Baker Martínez

(PhD in Hispanic Linguistics, UNM)

Elisabeth Baker Martínez completed her PhD in Hispanic Linguistics at UNM and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chicano Studies, Languages, and Linguistics at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her primary research interests are in child language acquisition. Having reclaimed her heritage language (Spanish) as an adult, she is especially interested in language development among child heritage speakers of Spanish. Elisabeth has conducted both experimental and corpus studies to understand children's patterns of regularization in verb morphology. Her 2022 publication on children's use of non-standard preterit forms in Spanish children was published in the Journal of Child Language. Her article on children's use of non-standard participles forms in Spanish has been studied in Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics.

Fredy Mendieta

Fredy is currently a PhD candidate in Hispanic Linguistics. His research focuses on Spanish-speaking adults' and children's co-speech gestures, in particular, points accompanying the production of demonstratives in the interactional space.

Marissa Montoya 

Marissa was born in Albuquerque and is a future bilingual high school social studies teacher! She completed the Mellon Summer Academy in 2021 at UNM and then transferred into UNM from CNM. She pursued her interest in linguistics and humanities by taking on a research assistant position for the Lobo Language Acquisition Lab. It is Marissa's goal to find out how to support and serve the bilingual teachers and students in New Mexico.

Jadin Moore

(MA in Linguistics, UNM)

Jadin received their M.A. in Linguistics from UNM. They have interests in language documentation, sociolinguistics, and L2 learning of minority languages by heritage speakers, particularly phonological systems. They were involved in the LLA Lab’s research on Spanish-English bilingualism and demonstratives.  

David Páez

(PhD in Linguistics, UNM)

David received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from UNM and currently teaches Spanish at Santa Fe Prep. His main research focuses on multimodal strategies for effective communication. In particular, he studies the cognitive processes involved in the interaction of phonetics, morphology, gesture, and discourse in Multimodal Iconic Expressions. David was also the coordinator of the Multilingualism Fellowship in the Lobo Language Acquisition Lab. He is also interested in pedagogical strategies for language teaching.

Molly Perara-Lunde 

(PhD in Educational Linguistics, UNM) 

 Molly Perara-Lunde is currently an ELL specialist. Molly works with bilingual elementary school children K-5. She works with classroom teachers to plan and deliver instruction that supports bilingual language development. 

Monica Perez

(BA, UNM)

Bettie Petersen

(PhD in Educational Linguistics, UNM)

Bettie completed her PhD in Educational Linguistics at UNM in 2022. She has an M.Ed. In Deaf Education Early Intervention from Utah State University. She is passionate about sign language acquisition for deaf/hard-of-hearing children who have hearing parents. She currently works at New Mexico School for the Deaf.

David Player

(MA in Linguistics, UNM)

David originally hails from Shreveport, Louisiana, and completed his MA in Linguistics at UNM. His primary interest is in the sociolinguistics of signed language. He hopes he will get an opportunity to research how Black signers use American Sign Language differently in the post-Civil Rights Movement era. He was working with Jill Morford on coding and analyzing adults' use of demonstratives in ASL. He currently works as an adjunct lecturer at California State University - Sacramento.

Raegan Reeves

(BA, UNM)

Raegan worked on the Spanish-English bilingualism research team during her time at the LLA Lab. She is currently a Film Production Assistant on movie shoots happening in and around ABQ.  

Melissa Salas

Melissa Salas is a Latina pre-med student from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is pursuing a BA in Biology and Spanish. Her research interests are understanding the lack of proper healthcare treatment among undocumented families and minority impoverished communities based on language and income barriers.

Alyssa-Marie Sanchez

Alyssa was born in Albuquerque and raised in the East Mountains. She is currently pursuing her MA in Linguistics at UNM,  She completed abachelor's degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences, double-majoring in Linguistics. She is half-Filipino (maternal) and half-Hispanic (paternal) and visits the Philippines with her family every summer. Alyssa was drawn to Speech and Hearing Sciences because of the inclusion of the medical aspect, while also being a more specific path. She hopes to earn her master's in SHS, and eventually use her degree to become a Speech Language Pathologist and an English as a Second Language teacher. 

Jesus Sanchez

Jesus Sanchez was raised in Rio Rancho, NM, and is currently pursuing a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Statistics. His research interests include studying how bilingualism influences one's perception of foreign countries and how learning another language as an adult delays mental degradation.

Audriana Sauceda 

Audriana Sauceda was born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado, a small town on the southern border of the state. The rich Hispanic culture of Albuquerque drew her to the University of New Mexico as a reminder of her own cultural upbringing. Audriana completed her BA in Speech and Hearing Sciences, with a minor in Family and Child Studies, and she is now pursuing her MA in Speech and Hearing Sciences at UNM. Inspired by her younger brother and cousins, she is passionate about helping the younger generation. Her goal is to attend graduate school and become a certified Speech Language Pathologist who specializes in pediatric care

 Joseline Segovia

(MA in Linguistics, UNM)

Joseline was born in El Paso, Texas, and raised in Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, México. She graduated with an MA in Linguistics from UNM in 2022. Her primary research areas are sociolinguistics, phonology and bilingualism. In the lab, Joseline worked on the Linguistic Bias Online Training. She is interested in working with underrepresented communities and applying linguistic research to address linguistic bias and promote language access. She is able to pursue this in her current job as the Language Access Coordinator for the Albuquerque Police Department.

Ryan Smith

Ryan collaborated with other LLA Lab members to develop outreach materials focused on language variation and linguistic bias while he was pursuing his PhD in Linguistics at UNM.

Olivia Stinson

Olivia is a sophomore majoring in Business Administration. She speaks Spanish and French and is planning to dual major in French. In Spring 2025, she worked as a Research Assistant under Dr. Naomi Shin in the LLA Lab.

Ava Stratton

She studies Spanish and music with a concentration in cello. Her interests lie in agriculture. After college, she hopes to work on farms in Latin America and learn regenerative practices. She worked in the lab in Spring 2025 on the Spanish-English bilingual research team with Dr. Shin. 

 Nick Sulier

(MA in Linguistics, UNM)

 Nick Sulier is currently a PhD student at UC Irvine.

Devin Tankersley

Devin is currently an 'honorary' researcher and friend of the Lobo Language Acquisition Lab in his final year of his PhD in Linguistics, working on topics related to phonological features of ASL and effects of language deprivation on neurodevelopment. During his time at the lab before his research in Taiwan, Devin produced progress reports and conducted research on demonstrative use in ASL as well. His research interests also include documentation and analysis of Taiwan Sign Language, focusing on phonological patterns and lexical variation. Outside of his studies, Devin has gotten back into rock climbing.

Ashley Toribio

(MA in Speech and Hearing Sciences, UNM)

Ashley completed her MA in Speech and Hearing Sciences. Ashley hails from the Pueblo of Sandia, and previously worked at the Tiwa Language Program. She worked on the Minority Language Acquisition Project with Jill Morford and Naomi Shin examining standardized tests used to assess pre-schoolers in New Mexico.

Iyweya Victor

Iyweya comes from a small town in New Mexico called Farmington. She grew up right next to the Navajo reservation for half my life, and for part of it. She was raised by her grandparents on the reservation. She is a fluent speaker of English, and she has been studying Navajo and other languages and would like to continue. She has a lot of family that speaks Navajo, including all of her grandparents and many of her aunts and uncles.