CV
Present position
| Since Jan. 2018 | Chargé de recherche, CNRS, 2018-2024 at laboratoire Dynamique du Langage (DDL), Lyon; since 2024 at laboratoire Structure et Dynamique des Langues (SeDyL), Villejuif |
Degrees
| Dec. 2016 | Habilitation, University of Cologne. Thesis title: “Affix borrowing: Processes and Patterns” (cumulative thesis consisting of seven publications and a framework paper) |
| Oct. 2005 | Ph.D. in linguistics, cum laude, Radboud Universiteit and Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. Thesis title: “The Structure and Use of Shape-Based Noun Classes in Miraña (North West Amazon)”, supervisors: S. C. Levinson, N. Himmelmann and N. J. Enfield. |
| Jan. 2001 | M.A. in Etnolingüística, Centro Colombiano de Estudios de Lenguas Aborígenes (CCELA), Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. Thesis title: “El sistema de clasificación nominal del miraña [The System of Nominal Classification of Miraña]”, supervisor: J. Landaburu |
| Jan. 1999 | M.A. in General Linguistics, Freie Universität Berlin. Thesis title: “Grundfragen bei der Dokumentation bedrohter Sprachen [Fundamental Issues in the Documentation of Endangered Languages]”, supervisor: H. H. Lieb |
Previous positions
| Feb. 2014 – Jan. 2018 | Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam |
| Aug. 2009 – Jan. 2014 | Senior Researcher, Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig |
| August 2009 | Faculty member, Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute. Class taught: Nominal classification |
| Oct. 2007 – July 2009 | Wissenschaftlicher Assistent, Universität Regensburg |
| Sep. 2004 – July 2009 | Wissenschaftlicher Assistent, Ruhr-Universität Bochum |
Third party funding
| 2025-2031 | Co-PI ERC Synergy project “SHAPE”, with co-PIs Mila Vulchanova (NTNU Trondheim), Pamela Perniss (University of Cologne), and Linda B. Smith (Indiana University) |
| 2019-2024 | PI, DFG Heisenberg grant “A New Empirical Linguistics through the Integration of Language Documentation, Comparative Corpus Linguistics, Typology, and Language Contact Research” |
| 2019-2022 | Co-PI, ANR–DFG project “Phonétique et morphologie interlinguistiques utilisant un corpus de référence multilingue aligné temporellement et construit à partir de documentations de 50 langues : Big data sur de petites langues – DoReCo”, with co-PIs Manfred Krifka (ZAS, Berlin, 2019) and François Pellegrino (DDL, Lyon, 2019–2022) |
| 2015-2018 | PI “Articulation speed variation cross-linguistically”, Volkswagenstiftung |
| 2011-2015 | PI “The relative frequencies of nouns, pronouns, and verbs cross-linguistically”, Volkswagenstiftung |
| 2004-2009 | PI “Documenting the languages of the People of the Center, especially Bora and Ocaina (North West Amazon)”, Volkswagenstiftung |
Honors and distinctions
| since 2026 | Elected Member, The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters (DKNVS) |
Awards
| 2025-2028 | CNRS Prime individuelle RIPEC catégorie 3 Campagne 2025 |
| May 2017 | Lecturer of the Year prize BA Linguistics University of Amsterdam |
| Dec. 2005 | Mary R. Haas Award, by the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas (SSILA) for a manuscript from a younger scholar that makes a significant substantive contribution to the knowledge of American Indian languages |
PhD and MA theses supervised
| 2022 | Frederic Blum (HU Berlin), M.A. thesis “Initial lengthening of consonants in 25 typologically diverse languages” |
| 2011-2016 | Katherine Bolaños (MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, and Universiteit van Amsterdam): Day-to-day supervision of Ph.D. thesis “A grammar of Kakua” (defended October 2016) |
| 2014 | Eline Visser (Universiteit van Amsterdam), M.A. thesis “Evidentiality that also expresses tense: A typological study” |
