I am a linguist interested in a broad range of phenomena related to language description and typology. My fieldwork centers around the central Chadic language Sakun (Sukur) spoken in Adamawa State, Nigeria. My dissertation, “A Grammar of Sakun (Sukur)” presents a first analysis of the interacting grammatical systems of the language based primarily on naturally occurring language data. Currently I am developing the corpus collected during the documentation project in order to explore aspects of the reference system in Sakun which presents a number of typologically unusual patterns and functions. In addition to my work on Chadic linguistics, I am also interested in the intersections of grammar and rhetoric, empirical approaches to understanding language and language maintenance. Currently I teach linguistics and rhetoric at Washington State University.