People

Faculty
Admin Roles

Anne-Michelle Tessier

Anne-Michelle Tessier

Associate Professor | Associate Department Head

location_onTotem Field Studios 106
I am primarily a theoretical phonologist who studies acquisition. When I have to put keywords on an abstract, they usually include “constraint-based” and/or “learning algorithms”, but I also work on things like lexical avoidance, U-shaped development, L2 production and perception in childhoo...Read more

Carla Hudson Kam

Carla Hudson Kam

Professor | Department Head

phone604 827 3594
location_onTotem Field Studios 222
Educational Background BA, Simon Fraser University, 1996 PhD, University of Rochester, 2003 Research Interests First and second language acquisition, developmental language production and processing, gesture and language learning and processing, non-linguistic constraints on langua...Read more

Garrett Nicolai

Garrett Nicolai

Assistant Professor of Teaching | MDS-CL Program Director

Hotze Rullmann

Hotze Rullmann

Associate Professor | Graduate Advisor

phone604 822 1399
location_onTotem Field Studios 128

Research Area

Semantics

Research Area

Semantics

Kathleen Hall

Kathleen Hall

Associate Professor | Undergraduate Advisor

phone604 822 5404
location_onTotem Field Studios 126
My research focuses on the formational patterns of languages (phonology) using techniques from a wide variety of areas, including interactions between phonology and the physical articulation and acoustic or visual properties of formational units (phonetics), the processing of such units in the brain...Read more

Molly Babel

Molly Babel

Professor | EDI Chair

phone604 822 6322
location_onTotem Field Studios 211
Broadly, I am interested in speech perception and production, and there is a strong theme of cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal inquiry in my work. More specifically, my research program focuses on the role of experience and exposure to phonetic and phonological knowledge, how social knowledge may...Read more
Tenure Stream

Anne-Michelle Tessier

Anne-Michelle Tessier

Associate Professor | Associate Department Head

location_onTotem Field Studios 106
I am primarily a theoretical phonologist who studies acquisition. When I have to put keywords on an abstract, they usually include “constraint-based” and/or “learning algorithms”, but I also work on things like lexical avoidance, U-shaped development, L2 production and perception in childhoo...Read more

Bryan Gick

Bryan Gick

Professor

phone604 822 4817
location_onTotem Field Studios 221
  Ph.D., Yale University, 1999 M.Phil., Yale University, 1997 M.A., Yale University, 1995 B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1992 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) Fellow of the American Association for the Advancem...Read more

Carla Hudson Kam

Carla Hudson Kam

Professor | Department Head

phone604 827 3594
location_onTotem Field Studios 222
Educational Background BA, Simon Fraser University, 1996 PhD, University of Rochester, 2003 Research Interests First and second language acquisition, developmental language production and processing, gesture and language learning and processing, non-linguistic constraints on langua...Read more

Christopher Hammerly

Christopher Hammerly

Assistant Professor

I am a descendent of the White Earth Nation in Minnesota, and much of my work focuses on understanding and documenting my ancestral language Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe). I use a variety of methods to understand the cognitive representations and processes underpinning human knowledge of syntax (sentenc...Read more

Douglas Pulleyblank

Douglas Pulleyblank

Professor

phone604 822 2063
location_onTotem Field Studios 209
Educational Background 1977, B.A., University of Ibadan 1983, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Garrett Nicolai

Garrett Nicolai

Assistant Professor of Teaching | MDS-CL Program Director

Gunnar Hansson

Gunnar Hansson

Associate Professor

phone604 822 4658
location_onTotem Field Studios 206

Henry Davis

Henry Davis

Professor

phone604 822 8948
location_onTotem Field Studios 202
My background is in language acquisition, but for the past twenty years my research has focused on the critically endangered indigenous languages of BC, in particular, those of the Salish, Wakashan, and Tsimshianic families. I have been working since 1992 on the Northern Interior Salish language ...Read more

Hotze Rullmann

Hotze Rullmann

Associate Professor | Graduate Advisor

phone604 822 1399
location_onTotem Field Studios 128

Research Area

Semantics

Research Area

Semantics

Isabel Papadimitriou

Isabel Papadimitriou

Assistant Professor (Incoming September 2025)

I work on understanding and defining the capabilities of large language models in relation to the human language system. I am especially interested in pursuing an interdisciplinary research program, combining computational empirical machine learning methods with theories of human language. My pri...Read more

Jian Zhu

I am primarily interested in spoken language processing, natural language processing and computational social science, with a focus on unsupervised/semi-supervised methods for speech segmentation/alignment, multilingual speech processing, spoken information retrieval and the language dynamics in onl...Read more

Kathleen Hall

Kathleen Hall

Associate Professor | Undergraduate Advisor

phone604 822 5404
location_onTotem Field Studios 126
My research focuses on the formational patterns of languages (phonology) using techniques from a wide variety of areas, including interactions between phonology and the physical articulation and acoustic or visual properties of formational units (phonetics), the processing of such units in the brain...Read more

Lisa Matthewson

Lisa Matthewson

Professor and Distinguished University Scholar

phone604 822 2976
location_onTotem Field Studios 204
Professor and Distinguished University Scholar Ph.D., University of British Columbia, 1996 Determiner Systems and Quantificational Strategies: Evidence from Salish (Co-winner of the Prize for Outstanding Dissertation in Language, Logic and Computation, European Association for Logic, Language a...Read more

M. Ryan Bochnak

M. Ryan Bochnak

Assistant Professor

I am a linguist and fieldworker. My research interests lie mainly in linguistic semantics, with a strong focus on cross-linguistic variation, semantic fieldwork, and language documentation. Topics that I have worked on include gradability and comparatives, tense and aspect, modality, complementation...Read more

Marcin Morzycki

Marcin Morzycki

Associate Professor

phone604 822 0678
location_onTotem Field Studios 226
I’m a semanticist working on semantics and its interface with syntax. Most of my research has had something to do with modification in one way or another, but it’s never been obvious to me that that actually constitutes a natural class of phenomena rather than a convenient rubric under which to ...Read more

Márton Sóskuthy

Márton Sóskuthy

Associate Professor

location_onTotem Field Studios 203
I obtained a combined MA in English Language and Literature / Theoretical Linguistics at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest in 2009, and a PhD in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh in 2013. I was a lecturer in phonetics and phonology at the University of York from 2013 to 2018. I am ...Read more

Molly Babel

Molly Babel

Professor | EDI Chair

phone604 822 6322
location_onTotem Field Studios 211
Broadly, I am interested in speech perception and production, and there is a strong theme of cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal inquiry in my work. More specifically, my research program focuses on the role of experience and exposure to phonetic and phonological knowledge, how social knowledge may...Read more

Rose-Marie Déchaine

Rose-Marie Déchaine

Professor | Chair of the African Studies Minor

phone604 822 6466
location_onTotem Field Studios 207
Education University of Massachusetts, Amherst, PhD (1993) Université du Québec à Montréal, MA (1986) University of Alberta, BA (1984)

Scott Mackie

Scott Mackie

Assistant Professor Without Review

“Language is a critical component of artificial intelligence. Solving the field’s more challenging problems will require a combination of data science, machine learning, and linguistics. The traditional split between arts and sciences means that few people end up with this blend of skills. The M...Read more

Strang Burton

Strang Burton

Associate Professor of Teaching

location_onTotem Field Studios 205
Ph.D. Linguistics - Rutgers University, 1995 M.A. Linguistics - University of Toronto, 1989 B.A. Philosophy - University of Toronto, 1984
Lecturers

Amanda Cardoso

Amanda Cardoso

Lecturer

  My research program overall seeks to understand language variation and change and the relationship to the historical socio-cultural contexts. Within this program I have generally focused on three main themes: 1. language variation and change with reference to changes is populations (e....Read more

Eva Csipak

Eva Csipak

Lecturer

Research Area

Pragmatics | Semantics

Research Area

Pragmatics | Semantics

Jahurul Islam

Articulatory and Acoustic phonetics; Experimental phonetics; Laboratory methods; Machine learning

Jungyeul Park

Jungyeul Park

Lecturer

phone604 822 4273
Sessionals & Adjuncts

Emanuela Mileva

Emanuela Mileva

Sessional Lecturer

Gloria Mellesmoen

Gloria Mellesmoen

PhD Candidate | Sessional Lecturer

About Me: I am pursuing a PhD in linguistics with an interest in phonology, non-concatenative morphology, and historical/comparative linguistics. My dissertation research focuses on reduplication across all 23 Salish languages, drawing upon primary fieldwork and archival materials. My research focu...Read more

Joash Gambarage

Joash Gambarage

Sessional Lecturer

location_on2613 West Mall, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4

Murray Schellenberg

Murray Schellenberg

Sessional Lecturer

Nigel Howard

Nigel Howard

Adjunct Professor

Research Area

Signed Languages

Research Area

Signed Languages

Suzanne Gessner

Suzanne Gessner

Sessional Lecturer

Sylvia Cho

Sylvia Cho

Sessional Lecturer

Postdoctoral Fellows

Caroline Locher-Lo

Caroline Locher-Lo

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Emeriti & Former Faculty

Guy Carden

Guy Carden

Associate Professor (retired)

Education Harvard University AB cum laude, Linguistics and Mathematics (1966) PhD, Linguistics (1970) Employment History Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, Bedford, Massachusetts Research Scientist, Linguistics (1969-71) Yale University, Department of Linguistics Vis...Read more

Joseph Stemberger

Joseph Stemberger

Professor Emeritus

phone604 822 0984
location_onTotem Field Studios 203
Educational Background B.A., the Pennsylvania State University, 1977 M.A., University of California, San Diego, 1979 Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 1982 Dissertation: [The Lexicon in a Model of Language Production] Academic Positions 1982-1984 Sloan Postdoctoral Fe...Read more

Martina Wiltschko

Martina Wiltschko

Honorary Affiliate Professor

phone604 822 5417
location_onTotem Field Studios 128

Research Area

Field Linguistics | Syntax
I am on a leave of absence from UBC. I have taken up a research position with ICREA at UPF. If you need to get in touch with me, please contact me at martina.wiltschko@icrea.cat.   Educational Background: Phd, MA University of Vienna Dissertation: ID's in Syntax ...Read more

Research Area

Field Linguistics | Syntax