I’m a linguist who studies the variability inherent in language. In my research, I analyze statistical patterns in large bodies of speech data in order to better understand how and why people talk differently.

I am a co-director of the NYU Sociolinguistics Lab; an Area Editor in the area of Sociolinguistics and Anthropological Linguistics for Linguistics Vanguard; and one of the academic leads of Our Dialects, an online atlas of British English regional dialects. In addition to publishing academic articles and book chapters on sociolinguistics, language variation, language change, dialectology, and linguistics pedagogy, I have served as an expert consultant for media pieces on regional dialects, language change, personal names, and how speakers’ accents can change over time.