People

Alexandre Alves Santos is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics at UMass Amherst. He has a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Linguistics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil) and a master’s degree in Hispanic Linguistics from UMass. Alexandre is interested in second language acquisition and processing, heritage languages, and language assessment. His current research focuses on measuring oral proficiency of heritage speakers of Portuguese, and its potential correlation with lexical development.

Languages: Portuguese (native), Spanish (near-native), English (advanced).

Luiz Amaral is a professor of Portuguese and Spanish linguistics at UMass Amherst. He enjoys studying languages and talking to people from different parts the world. He is originally from Rio de Janeiro and loves Brazilian music and food. His research focuses on morphosyntactic acquisition in second languages, and bilingual development in minoritized communities. He has been working for more than a decade on indigenous language revitalization projects, with a special focus on pedagogical materials and language program development. He is one of the chief editors of Living Languages - Lenguas Vivas - Línguas Vivas, a multilingual, international journal solely dedicated to languages revitalization. Visit his website for more information about his research projects and publications.

Languages: Portuguese (native), English (near-native), Spanish (near-native), French (advanced), German (low intermediate), Italian (elementary), Wapichana (elementary).

Marco Tulio Bittencourt is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics at UMass Amherst. He is interested in studying heritage languages and morphosyntactic acquisition in second languages. He is currently working on the acquisition of derivational morphology by heritage speakers of Portuguese. He holds an MA in Linguistics from the University of Brasilia (Brazil) where he investigated the semantics of stative verbs with the periphrastic progressive in Brazilian Portuguese.

Languages: Portuguese (native), English (near-native), Spanish (near-native).

Isaura de Los Santos is a PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics at UMass Amherst. She is a native speaker of Chatino from Panixtlahuaca, Oaxaca, Mexico. Her research centers on literacy development on her native language, seeking to contribute to its revitalization. She has been developing resources for Chatino speakers, such as children’s books, reading materials and a pedagogical grammar. Over the last 9 years she has been teaching reading and writing in the Chatino language.

Languages: Chatino (native), Spanish (native), English (advanced), Portuguese (elementary).

Andie Faber is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and the Spanish Language Program Coordinator in the Department of Modern Languages at Kansas State University. She teaches classes in additional language pedagogy, linguistics, and Spanish language and conducts research in bilingualism, language acquisition and maintenance, and pedagogical practices to support equity.

Languages: English (native), Spanish (near-native), Portuguese (advanced), Russian (elementary).

Carlos Flores is a first year Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics at UMass Amherst. He is a native speaker of Quechua from Bolivia. He comes from an expert weaving family in the village of Candelaria, Chuquisaca, Bolivia. He has a bachelor’s degree in languages, focusing on Quechua, Spanish and English from the San Francisco Xavier University of Chuquisaca, with an undergraduate studies in Sociology from the University of Hradec Králové in the Czech Republic, where he also taught Quechua. He is interested in contributing to the revitalization of the Quechua language through social media, pedagogical teaching materials and designing experiential learning for children and adults, and he has been working on projects to teach and promote his native language, including the development of corpora, translations and pedagogical materials. One of its publications is Bolivian Quechua Verbal Art, collected, transcribed and translated to Spanish by him.

Languages: Quechua (native), Spanish (native), English (advanced), Czech (elementary).

Jaqueline Ionson is a first year Ph.D. student in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics at UMass Amherst. She has been teaching both Portuguese and Spanish as second languages for many years. Jaqueline is originally from Brazil and her research interests are in second and heritage language instruction and acquisition.

Languages: Portuguese (native), Spanish (advanced), English (advanced)

Isaac McAlister is a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics at UMass Amherst. His dissertation project focuses on the acquisition of the present perfect in English and Spanish by Portuguese native speakers. He has been teaching Spanish, English and Portuguese as second languages for many years, and he enjoys studying new languages and the strategies that people use to learn them.

Languages: English (native), Spanish (near-native), Portuguese (advanced), French (advanced), Italian (elementary), Romanian (elementary).

Abril Navarro holds two Bachelor's degrees in Linguistics and Spanish, and a M.A. degree in Linguistics from UMass Amherst. As an undergrad her research focused mostly on theoretical syntax, and language acquisition. As a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Linguistics, her research has focused around language assessment, Spanish heritage speakers, linguistic attitudes, and language policy issues. Abril is originally from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and in addition to being a linguist, she works as an instructional technologist. Besides being an immigrant, she is a mom, a huge sports fan, a cat lover, and a travel enthusiast.

Languages: Spanish (native), English (near-native) Portuguese (elementary).