My research focuses on the phonological investigation of suprasegmental aspects of Spanish, particularly intonational cues for meaning categorization, and natural language processing, specifically automatic speech processing and intonation classification. I study Andalusian, Castilian, and Caribbean Spanish, with broader interests in second language phonology, corpus analysis, and machine learning for natural language processing. Last October, I presented a project at NWAV50 together with my mentor Dr. Erik Willis, about dialectal variation of utterance type in Spanish. This paper was selected for inclusion in Penn Working Papers in Linguistics. Additionally, a chapter that I wrote on Philippine Spanish will be published soon in the Enciclopedia Concisa de los Dialectos del Español, edited by Dr. Manuel Díaz Campos and Dr. Juan Manuel Hernández Campoy.

Throughout my academic career, I have gained valuable experience in various roles. As an associate instructor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, I refined my teaching skills while contributing to the academic growth of students. I also served as an IUHPFL language instructor in León, Spain, providing immersive language instruction over two summers. During the summer 2023, I assisted Dr. Willis in a service-learning course in the Dominican Republic. This year, I was honored with the Associate Instructor Teaching Award from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, recognizing my commitment to excellence in teaching and creating an inclusive learning environment.

I actively contribute to the academic community through various service roles. Last fall, I established and facilitated the Spanish Phonetics Working Group supported by Dr. Willis, providing a platform for discussing Spanish phonetics and phonology in our department. In 2020-2021, I served as co-chair of the Graduate Student Advisory Committee (GSAC) of our department, actively contributing to the development of the graduate student community and organizing the 18th Diálogos Graduate Student Conference.

I want to express my gratitude to my mentors, Dr. Willis and Dr. Sandra Kuebler (Department of Linguistics), for their constant support and guidance. I also want to thank all the professors and my fellow graduate student colleagues in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese for their invaluable time and the collaborative environment they have fostered.