About me
I am an interdisciplinary researcher who is after the multichannel organization of language. Working on sign languages, my research focuses on how human mind organizes visual modality and uses its simultaneous nature to realize the semantic and pragmatic notions across languages and populations. I am specifically interested in how manual domain (hands) and nonmanual domain (face and body movements) are modulated to convey semantic notions such as certainty, information structure, or prominence and (a)typicality across languages such as American Sign Language (ASL), Turkish Sign Language (TİD), Nicaraguan Sign Language (LSN), and populations such as early acquirers, late acquirers, or emerging sign language users. I am currently extending my skillset to computational models trained on sign languages and to test their capacity to capture this simultaneous nature.
I held post-doctoral appointments at Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC) within Speech & Language group (SL@TTIC) and Perception and Learning Systems (PALS) groups, and at Dr. Diane Brentari’s Sign Language Linguistics Laboratory at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Chicago. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Linguistics at Purdue University under Dr. Ronnie B. Wilbur’s supervision. If you want to know more about my research, you can find my CV here.
While not working on sign languages, you can find me exploring the city with my retriever-mix rescue dog, Oscar, going on hikes, swimming, or picking up a new hobby.
Recent News
September 2026 Our abstract on computational analysis of head nod trajectories in ASL and TİD is accepted to LSA Annual Meeting 2027 in January! Our results show that sign languages map linguistic functions into specific kinematic features rather than a single holistic movement. Excited for this opportunity!
September 2026 My abstract presenting my research agenda Language Across Channels: The Organization of Language Across Body, Space, and Time is accepted to American Association for Advancement of Science Annual Meeting 2027 in February! I will be discussing how the multichannel simultaneous organization of sign languages is shaped to convey information! Excited for this opportunity!
August 2026 The work which I led on the linguistic analysis of SHuBERT-based sign language model is accepted to the Signed Languages and AI: Advances, Challenges, and Ethics Symposium in LSA 2027! We will discuss how sign language models have difficulty in utilizing the multi-channel structure of sign languages, where signers are way more comfortable to do so. Excited for the symposium and looking forward to sign linguists’ input on the rising AI research in sign languages.
August 2026 My work ‘Age of Acquisition Effects on Head Nods in ASL: Computational Approaches’ is accepted to BUCLD (Boston University Conference on Language Development) as a poster presentation! Hope to see everyone in Boston in November!
July 2026 New preprint is out! We tested how continuous movement of head nods in ASL and TID are shaped to convey two distinct linguistic functions - prosodic and semantic head nods. Kinematic features and DTW analysis showed that ASL and TID signers use distinct trajectories to convey prosodic head nods - very first crosslinguistic distinctions in nonmanuals. In contrast, they use similar trajectories for semantic head nods. Excited for the future work that this study will bring forth!
July 2026 Our CVPR proceeding has won the Best Paper Award!
July 2026 Our work with Cem Barutçu is accepted to the FEAST Conference as a stage presentation in July. Kudos to Cem because this work evolved from his term project on Clausal Question-Answer Pairs (CQA) in TİD! Happy to connect with old friends and make new ones! See you in Amsterdam!
June 2026 Our preprint is accepted to the CVPR 2026 GenSign Workshop as a poster! I will be in Denver, CO to present it and looking forward to meeting with colleagues!