Vanessa Elias is a Ph.D. student in the Hispanic Linguistics program. She received her B.A. in Spanish and Political Science from the University of Florida and her M.A. in Spanish Linguistics from Arizona State University. Vanessas research interests include pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and heritage language acquisition. She is particularly interested in how the contact situation in the United States has affected Spanish heritage speakers pragmatic and syntactic systems. In her free time, Vanessa enjoys traveling, meeting new people, cooking, and spending time with friends and family.