Zach just started Master of Arts (MA) in English with a concentration in Linguistics. They are interested in phonetics, sound systems, and how speech patterns may overlap with social status and social groups. For example, the United States has distinct regional dialects, like the differences between the Southern and Northern accents, or other variations such as the ‘valley girl’ or ‘surfer dude’ way of speaking.
Zach is intrigued by how language evolves across generations, particularly in digital spaces. The same emoji can mean very different things depending on who is using it. Building on these interests, they hope to expand their research into computational linguistics, a field that applies computer science techniques to the analysis of written language.
Zach’s interest in linguistic variations, especially among immigrant communities, led them to the Institute for Immigration Research (IIR). Immigrants are an interesting group for linguistic research. The communities they form that are often tightly knit offer rich ground for exploring how language functions socially. Also, the current public discourse around immigration is something Zach cares about. They think immigrants shouldn’t be ignored or demonized because they are an important part of society. Zach’s great-great-grandfather immigrated from Lebanon. This enabled their family to gain a richer understanding of what immigrants go through.
This academic year, Zach will be working on IIR’s Immigration Data on Demand (iDod) project, helping analyze the latest data from the U.S. Census on immigration and creating visualizations using geospatial tools, such as ArcGIS. They are excited about their work, given their own interest in ethnic groups and linguistic variations. Zach feels the world is richer when there are many languages and dialects. A homogeneous language is boring. In the long term, they want to contribute to research that emphasizes the significance of linguistic diversity.
October 01, 2025