The LSA's Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics (CEDL) is pleased to announce the four winners of this year's CEDL Travel Grants: Kendra Calhoun, Tracy Conner, Megan Figueroa, and Rachelle Riojas.

Calhoun, Conner, Figueroa, and Riojas (left to right)

Kendra Calhoun is in her first year of a PhD program in linguistics at UC Santa Barbara, after having finished dual bachelor’s degrees in English and psychology. In her own research she aims to illuminate how appropriation of African American English (AAE) features and performances of Blackness on social media can perpetuate white linguistic privilege and negative cultural images of Black speakers. This will be Kendra’s first time attending the LSA Annual Meeting, and she hopes to engage with other researchers of AAE and online language to discuss their research.

Full interview with Kendra Calhoun

Tracy Conner has an MA in Communication Disorders and is a fifth year doctoral candidate in Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Although this is her first time attending an LSA Annual Meeting, Tracy will be presenting two papers – an individually authored paper on ellipsis licensing and copula/possessive optionality in African American English, which she will present at the American Dialect Society, and a co-authored paper on raising out of “do so” anaphora.

Full interview with Tracy Conner

Megan Figueroa is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at the University of Arizona, where she also recently completed an MA. This is Megan’s first time attending the LSA Annual Meeting, where she is very much looking forward to the plenary lecture of Carmen Silva-Corvalán, whose research has inspired Megan and is related to her interests in Spanish-English bilingual children.

Full interview with Megan Figueroa

Rachelle Riojas has just completed a BA with a double major in Spanish and Arabic at Wayne State University and plans to pursue graduate studies in linguistics. After discovering linguistics in her last semester as an undergraduate, she will be starting a Masters program in 2015.

Full interview with Rachelle Riojas

Each awardee will receive $500 to attend the LSA 2015 Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon. Congratulations again to our grant recipients!