About Me

I am an Associate Professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus, where I teach courses in linguistic anthropology. My research focuses on language documentation and revitalization in Canada and in Papua New Guinea, as well as the relationship between endangered language communities and created language communities. I have conducted research with the Na’vi speech community (from the movie Avatar) and recently have begun investigating the language of babywearing used in the online fan community of babywearers.

I am also a professional language creator and have created the Kryptonian language (Man of Steel 2013), the Eltarian language (Power Rangers 2017), the Beama language (also known as Cro-Magnon) (Alpha 2018), and the Atlantean language (Zack Snyder’s Justice League 2021).

Learn more about me here.