People

Lab Director

Dr. Qi Cheng is an assistant professor in Linguistics at the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics and Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego. Her research interests lie in language processing and learning, the neural foundations of language, and early neural plasticity. Outside of work, Qi enjoys taking care of her plant and fur babies, dabbling in art/craft/music projects, and exploring the PNW nature.

Email: qicheng2{at}uw.edu

 

Graduate Students

Yoojin Oh is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Linguistics department. Yoojin earned a BS degree in Psychology and a BA degree in Korean at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She decided to study linguistics because of her interests in psycho- and neurolinguistics. Yoojin‘s research interests are second language acquisition, how bilingualism can affect cognition and neurological processes. Outside of school, Yoojin enjoys spending time with her friends and family!
Yuting Zhang is a third-year Ph.D student in Linguistics at the University of Washington. She earned her BA in English Teaching and her MA in Sign Linguistics. Her research interests are sign language grammaticalization/lexicalization, relationships between gestures and signs, sign language word formation/historical development of sign lexicons, and how early sign language input benefits language development in total. Outside of research, Yuting enjoys sleeping, eating potato chips, and watching sunset at the sea.  Email: yutingzh{at}uw.edu

 

 

ASL Consultants

Tina Leonard
Ms. Kristi Winter has a BA degree in ASL Studies and a Master’s in Linguistics from Gallaudet University. She has been a full-time member of the University of Washington Linguistics Department faculty since September 2010. Prior to joining UW, she taught ASL at various universities and colleges for over 20 years, including several years at Gallaudet University. Kristi was the President of the Washington State chapter of ASLTA and has given presentations and workshops on ASL and ASL Linguistics to teachers of ASL in the past.

For her MA degree research projects, Kristi conducted research on numerical incorporation in Japanese Sign Language as well as regional differences between ASL signers in the Northern and Southern states. She was also involved in researching ASL phonology acquisition in first language (L1) ASL by young deaf and hearing children. Her main research interests are in the sociolinguistics of Deaf communities, ASL morphology, second language (L2) ASL acquisition by both deaf and hearing learners and ASL teaching methods and strategies.

Email: kwinter2{at}uw.edu

 

Undergraduate LING499 Students/Volunteers

2023-2024: Claire Cho, Hayley Chu, Samantha Corcoran, Alex Lei, Sophia Li, Charisse Marshall, Claire Tan, Megan Walenta, Xinyue Yu

2022-2023: Gillian Lejin Soo, Jordyn Warner, Amar Weatherman, Daniela Villanueva, Claire Tan, Charisse Marshall, Xinyue Yu, Felicia Du, Anna Testorf

2021-2022: Lauren Preston, Clare Madison Necas, Teia O’Malley, Jessie Zhang