Contact Information
707 S. Mathews Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801, U.S.A.
Biography
Born and raised in China, I earned my B.A. degree in English and M.A. degree in Applied Linguistics as a first-generation college student. I have taught Mandarin at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, and in K-12 schools in the US. I have also taught Mandarin here at the U of I.
I speak Mandarin, English, Polish (basic), and Japanese (basic). Outside study, I like playing badminton, hiking, and music.
Research Interests
Prosody
Speech Processing
Speech Perception
Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy
Research Description
My research focuses on prosody and its intersections with second language (L2) acquisition and pedagogy, automatic speech recognition, and machine learning. I am interested in discovering and describing new prosodic phenomena in world languages. For example, an on-going project of mine is to describe and analyze the lexical tonal system in my hometown dialect, the Feixiang dialect. As a Mandarin instructor for many years, I also love studying the L2 Mandarin speaker's acquisition of tones and intonation. I approach these problems using automatic speech recognition and machine learning techniques.
Grants
LAS Humanities Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2023
University Block Grant Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2023
University Block Grant Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020
Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2020 - 2022
Awards and Honors
Global Educator, International Student and Scholar Services, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2022 Fall - 2023 Spring
Best Chinese TA, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2022 Fall - 2023 Spring
Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2023 Spring
Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2022 Fall
Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019 Fall
Courses Taught
CHIN 201
CHIN 202
CHIN 203
CHIN 204