I am a Germanic linguist, specializing in variationist sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and second language acquisition. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada), and I received my Ph.D. in Linguistics from Purdue University. I am currently engaged in two long-term research projects. The first investigates intensification in Germanic languages (modern and historical), a project which involves an examination of how linguistic and social factors shape the use and development of intensifying adverbs. The second aims to extend the use of variationist methods to the study of underrepresented speech communities. My doctoral work focused predominantly on applied historical linguistics, and examined how knowledge of language change can be beneficial when learning historically related languages.