Hello,
a bit about me:
I am currently at Yale University as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Presidential Visiting Scholar.
From fall 2021 to fall 2024, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston College in Boston, Massachusetts.
My main research area is the semantics of African languages. I work on Akan, a Niger-Congo language spoken in Ghana.
I received my Ph.D. from Rutgers University. My dissertation, "Cross-Categorial Definiteness/Familiarity," examined the semantics of the Akan definite determiner that occurs in DPs and sentences. Professors Simon Charlow (chair), Veneeta Dayal, Viviane Deprez, and Malte Zimmerman (external) were my committee members.
My research focuses on how African languages can contribute to linguistic theory, specifically formal semantic theory. It involves critically applying existing theories to Akan and other Kwa languages to account for empirical data while supporting or revising the existing theory. The goal is to highlight the significance of these understudied languages in the search for an explanatorily adequate theory. The goal of this research program is also to pique the interest of native-speaker linguists in formal semantic analyses of African languages.
Aside from linguistics, I am particularly interested in the role of women in conflict resolution, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding, with a focus on African women. As a volunteer, I have also worked as an ESL instructor for a refugee resettlement organization.
This summer, I taught "Introduction to Formal Semantics" at the 7th African Linguistics School, held at the University of Education, Winneba, in Ghana.