Gita Martohardjono’s research focuses on the development of syntax, semantics and phonology in adult second language acquisition and bilingualism. Her projects investigate the acquisition of gap structures, such as wh-questions, relative clauses, control structures and null pronouns in bilingual adults and children from a cross-linguistic perspective. In the area of semantics, her research investigates the acquisition of temporal and aspectual markers by child and adult bilinguals. In phonology, her work centers on the role of L1 phonotactics as a potential source of interference in L2 acquisition. A variety of languages have been examined, including Italian, Spanish, Indonesian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Recent projects investigate non-standard varieties of Italian and Spanish, as spoken by “heritage” speakers, and include the use of electrophysiology (ERP). A second research area is the development of literacy in emergent bilinguals. Since 2004, she has conducted research on immigrant students with low literacy in the native language, and has been a leader in the construction of academic language and literacy assessments benefiting this population. She is currently PI on several externally funded projects creating multilingual, online assessments for use in NY public schools.

Ricardo Otheguy is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the CUNY Graduate Center. His work in theoretical and applied linguistics has appeared in major international journals such as Language, Language in Society, Spanish in Context, Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, the Modern Language Journal, and the Harvard Educational Review. His publications in theoretical linguistics are in the areas of variationist sociolinguistics, Columbia School linguistics, the Spanish of the United States, and the grammatical consequences of people contact; in applied linguistics, his publications are in the areas of bilingual education and the teaching of Spanish as a home language and as a second or foreign language. He was founding editor of the journal Spanish in Context. He is the author, with Ana Celia Zentella, of Spanish in New York: Language contact, dialectal leveling and structural continuity (Oxford University Press, 2012). Otheguy has developed textbook materials for the teaching of Spanish to Latino students in the United States, including Tu Mundo: Curso para hispanohablantes. He has also written Spanish materials for English-speaking students and is coauthor of the high school Spanish textbook Avancemos.”

HAGAY SCHURR
Email | Academia.edu

Hagay Schurr is the RISLUS administrative assistant. General RISLUS Queries can be directed to [email protected]. Hagay Schurr is a Ph.D. candidate in the Linguistics Program at the CUNY Graduate Center. His interests include the syntax-semantics interface, contact linguistics, and linguistic typology. He is involved in projects on island effects in African languages, the morphosyntax of case in Romance languages, and the semantics of indefinite nouns across languages. He holds an M.A in Linguistics (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), and an M.Phil in Linguistics (CUNY Graduate Center). Hagay is currently working on his Ph.D. dissertation, exploring long-distance dependencies in Shupamem (Grassfields Bantu) based on field work with a NY-based speaker.

AARON POLLARD
Email: [email protected]

Aaron Pollard is a graduate of Queens College's Drama, Theater, and Dance program and handles administrative duties as well as user support for the MLS.

Research Fellow
Email | Personal Website

Kate Menken is Professor of Linguistics and a Research Fellow at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in an Urban Society at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY). She is Co-Editor in Chief of the journal Language Policy. Her research interests include language education policy, bilingual education, and educational policies and practices for bilingual students in the U.S. (especially New York City). Her books include English Learners Left Behind: Standardized Testing as Language Policy (Multilingual Matters, 2008); Negotiating Language Policies in Schools: Educators as Policymakers (with Ofelia García, Routledge, 2010); Common Core, Bilingual and English Language Learners: A Resource for Educators (with Guadalupe Valdés and Mariana Castro, Caslon, 2015), Translanguaging and Transformative Teaching for Emergent Bilingual Students: Lessons from the CUNY-NYSIEB Project (with the CUNY-NYSIEB team, Routledge, 2020), and Overcoming the gentrification of dual language, bilingual, and immersion education: Solution-oriented research and stakeholder resources for real integration (with Garrett Delavan and Juan Freire, Multilingual Matters, 2024). Further information can be found on her website: http://katemenken.org and Google scholar page.

Research Associate
Email | Personal Website

Laura Ascenzi-Moreno is an Assistant Professor and Bilingual Program Coordinator in the Childhood, Bilingual, and Special Education Department at Brooklyn College.  She received her doctorate in Urban Education from the City University of New York Graduate Center in 2012.  Prior to becoming a professor, she was a dual language, bilingual teacher and coach in New York City public schools for more than a decade.  Her research is focused on the literacy development of emergent bilingual students, the development of teacher knowledge, and how both of these intersect with equity.  Her research interests also include translanguaging, multi-modalities, assessment, and school governance.  She conducts case studies of teachers and schools to study the lived worlds of children and teachers.  She was also an Associate Investigator for the City University of New York New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (CUNY-NYSIEB) from 2012-16.  Her publications can be found in Literacy Research and Instruction, Language and Education, Schools: Studies in Education, and Language Arts.

Relevant Publications:

• Ascenzi-Moreno, L.  (July 2018) Emergent Bilingual Readers Through the Lens of Possibility: A Translanguaging Perspective on Formative Reading Assessment.  Language Arts Journal, 95(6). 
• Ascenzi-Moreno, L. & Espinosa, C.M. (2018). “Opening Up Spaces for their Whole Selves:” A Study Group’s Exploration of Translanguaging Practices in Writing.  New York State TESOL Journal. 
• Ascenzi-Moreno, L. (2017). From deficit to diversity: How teachers of recently-arrived emergent bilinguals negotiate ideological and pedagogical change.  Schools: Studies in Education.
•  Ascenzi-Moreno, L.  (2016). An exploration of elementary teachers' views of informal reading inventories in dual language bilingual programs.  Literacy Research and Instruction, Published on-line May 4, 2016.  DOI: 10.1080/19388071.2016.1165318

Research Associate
Email | Bridges to Academic Success

Lisa Auslander is the Principal Investigator and Senior Project Director at Bridges to Academic Success, a City University of New York-based project at the Graduate Center, where she leads the work of the curriculum,  professional learning and evaluation teams, designing and evaluating resources for teachers of Students with Interrupted and Inconsistent Schooling (SIFE) and newcomer multilingual students. In this role, she works with schools and districts throughout New York State and other parts of the country on their school improvement plans for multilingual learners. Lisa received her PhD in Urban Education based on a study of culturally and linguistically responsive RtI for secondary English language learners.  She also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Hunter College in Educational Leadership and is the co-author of School-wide Systems for Multilingual Learner Success: A Roadmap for Leaders.

Research Associate
Email | Personal Website

Sharon Anvi is Associate Professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) in the Academic Literacy and Linguistics department. Currently, she is completing a Spencer Foundation sponsored study that focuses on the expansion of dual language bilingual programs in New York City public schools with Kate Menken (CUNY Graduate Center/Queens College). In addition, she is co-PI of a study examining Hebrew programs in American public schools. She is also co-authoring a book with Sarah Benor (HUC) and Jonathon Krasner (Brandeis University) to be published by Rutgers University Press in 2019 that examines the role of Hebrew in Jewish overnight summer camps. Her previous scholarship has explored Hebrew language ideologies, policy, and socialization in Jewish and charter school contexts. She has also worked on areas of academic literacy, college readiness, and development education in community colleges.

Relevant Publications:

• Avni, S. (2018) What can the study of Hebrew learning contribute to applied linguistics? Modern Language Journal, 102(2), 446-448.
• Avni, S. & Finn, H.  (2017). Pedagogy and Curricular Choice in Community College Accelerated Writing Courses. Community College Journal of Research and Practice. DOI: 10.1080/10668926.2017.1398687 
• Menken, K. & Avni, S. (2017) Challenging linguistic purism in dual language bilingual education:  A case study of Hebrew in a New York City public middle school. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 37, 185-202.
• Avineri, N. & Avni, S. (2017). Language socialization in Jewish communities: Sites of religious, cultural and national identities. In P. Duff & S. May (eds.) Language socialization. In Series: Encyclopedia of Language and Education. 3rd Ed. Cham: Springer International. 323-338. 
• Jacknick, C. & Avni, S. (2016). Shalom, bitches: Epistemic stance and identity work in an anonymous online forum. Discourse, Context, and Media. 15, 54-64.
• Finn, H. & Avni, S. (2016) Negotiating Academic Literacy in Community College Developmental Writing, Current Issues in Language Planning 17(3-4), 369-384.
• Avni, S. (2015). Negotiating language ownership: Hebrew charter schools and the American Jewish Press. Language and Communication 45, 83-95.
• Avni, S. (2015) The meanings of Hebrew: Defining bilingual education in dual language charter school education. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 18(2), 188-202.
• Avni, S. (2014) Hebrew in the North American linguistic landscape. In B. Spolsky, M. Tannenbaum, & O. Inbar (Eds.), Challenges for language education and policy: Making space for people (pp. 196-213). New York: Routledge.

Research Associate
Email | Personal Website

Dr. Isabelle Barrière is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Molloy College. Her research on the acquisition of different languages by monolinguals and bilinguals focuses on early morphosyntactic development and the impact of cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal factors and on the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment of literacy and mathematical skills in preschool and school children. Her projects have focused on monolingual and bilingual children acquiring African American English, British Sign Language, English, French, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Kyrgyz, Russian, (Dominican and Mexican) Spanish, and Yiddish. Dr. Barrière is also the Director of Policy for Research and Education at YVY Early Childhood Center, one of the largest Head Start programs in New York City. She is currently leading two NSF-funded programs: a) the NSF-Research Experience for Undergraduate Site Intersection of Linguistics, Language and Culture focuses on the linguistic diversity of New York City that encourages and supports research by and on members of minorities under-represented in Higher Education and b) Experimental Linguistics in the Caribbean is a seven-week summer program during which undergraduate and graduate students conduct research projects involving children and adults speaking different French-based creoles; it will run again for the second time in the Summer of 2024. In 2018 her contribution to our understanding of the language development of young children in Haiti and in New York was recognized by thirteen NYC, NYS and US elected officials and in January 2019 she was made Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Government for her contribution to scholarship and education.

Research Associate
Email | Website

Jennifer Chard is the Project Director for the Multilingual Literacy SIFE Screener (MLS) and Co-PI of the Newcomer Reading Skills Assessment Pilot. She is a Project Advisor to Bridges to Academic Success. Jennifer has led and collaborated in several multilingual language and literacy projects at the Second Language Acquisition Lab and RISLUS since joining in 2014. Jennifer's research focuses on multilingual reading comprehension with an emphasis on students with interrupted education. In her current role, Jennifer has the privilege of working with teachers and administrators in order to promote the importance of using students' home language skills and abilities during intake and in responsive instructional design. Jennifer holds a PhD in Linguistics from the CUNY Graduate Center.

Research Associate
Email | Personal Website

Ofelia García is Professor Emerita in the Ph.D. programs of Urban Education and Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has been Professor of Bilingual Education at Columbia University´s Teachers College, and at The City College of New York; and has been Dean of the School of Education at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University. García has published widely in the areas of sociology of language, language policy, multilingualism, and the education of language minorities, and has received several prestigious awards. She has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education.

Research Associate
Email

Abdoulaye Laziz Nchare is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Linguistics at St. John’s University. He’s a winner of The MacCracken Fellowship Program that provides multi-year full funding support to most new GSAS doctoral students at New York University. He has co-authored two prominent articles: (1) “Licensing silent structure: the spatial prepositions of Shupamem” with Arhonto Terzi and (2) “Integrated non-restrictive relative clauses in Shupamem” in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory. He has also done research on languages such as Grassfield Bantu languages and pidgins and creoles, French varieties such as Camfranglais as spoken by bilingual Cameroonians nationally and internationally. He is currently gathering data on address forms and language registers usage across the Grassfields Bantu spoken in West Cameroon, including at present 10 languages such as Shupamem, Medumba, Yemba, Ghomala, Fe’efe’e, Bafut, Bafanji, Mbum, Nweh, and Bali. His ultimate goal is to contribute to language documentation of understudied languages of Africa.

Research Associate
Email | Faculty Website 

Michael Newman is Professor of Linguistics at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He’s the author of 2014 volume, New York City English and author and co-author various articles on New York City English in such journals as American Speech, Journal of Sociolinguistics, English World-Wide and Language Variation and Change. He has also done research on languages such as Catalan and Spanish on immigrants in Barcelona and Second Person Singular address. He is currently gathering data on address pronoun usage across the Spanish speaking world, including at present nine countries.