2020

The last update I wrote was in November 2019. It's not possible to  put in to words the experiences of the last year, but I do believe it is important to share some things that have happened. I have the opportunity to work with and learn from some straight rockstars. In gratitude:

• Massive shoutout to my UofSC colleagues this year - the women in my department (in particular, not exclusively) have been the most incredible support system for each other, from engaging in deep conversations about the need for racial reckoning and social justice to talking through day-to-day problem-solving of being in a pandemic to finding joy in small things and sharing those with one another. I'm very grateful to be in a space with colleagues I genuinely enjoy not only working with, but sharing life with (as much as we can). 
  
• I can't say enough about the folks who work in my research lab (if you're recruiting for medical school or SLP doctoral programs, get in touch! The most amazing students work in my lab. I will have no trouble convincing you.) Nearly everyone stuck around and has adapted incredibly since shifting from full-speed in March 2020 to a complete halt in all live interaction with kids. We're slowly gearing up to start working with kids again virtually through Reach Every Reader, but we won't be back to working with anyone in person until at least fall 2021. And yet, folks have stuck around and deepened their contributions. Kaiela Campos and Jaddey Feliz-Cabrera are leading a really cool deep-dive into bilingual sentence repetition error analysis alongside Rose Luna - every time I talk with them, I get more excited about where they are going to go and the impact they will have (and that's not to mention their actual research, which is thoughtful and insightful - there's no way I could've come up with what they have dug into through this project). Molly Morgan and Manaal Ahmed have been collaborating with a fantastic group (including Daniela Becerra, Jacob Wilcox - a current Fulbright applicant, and Alvaro Verástegui... not to mention Marc Goodrich and  Sergio Leiva at University of Nebraska-Lincoln) to develop a culturally- and linguistically-responsive questionnaire that can be administered over the phone to U.S.-based Spanish-speaking families to gain a better understanding of family engagement in language- and literacy-supportive practices (which of course depends on the culture of the home! I cannot wait to write more about this work as we learn more). And Sarah Kate Coleman, who has persevered in adapting her senior undergraduate honors thesis to the times - she's examining how phonological variation occurs within sentence repetition tasks and how much that matters in dual language development... that's another project that will be a joy to share updates on as she moves forward on it. 
• Kimberly Briseño: currently part-time project coordinator for the SC site for Reach Every Reader (hopefully soon-to-be full-time!). Cannot say enough positive words about Kimberly - she is adaptive, quick-thinking, intentional, intelligent, and simply a delight to work with. We've struggled through a lot together this year (including sharing mutual sadness in saying goodbye to Mia Hruska as she moved on to her masters studies in speech-language pathology) and Kimberly has shown so much resilience. We are beyond fortunate to have connected and I am grateful for the opportunity to continue working with her into 2021!
• External to UofSC, there are more positive words than I could ever say for the folks I've had the privilege to learn from and start getting to know - I'm nervous because I will not explicitly shout out all folks who deserve recognition, but I don't want that to be an excuse to not name amazing people (in no particular order) because they are going above and beyond and have more than earned credit for space: Anny Castilla-Earls (100% helped me get it in gear to revise my dissertation for publication... which then got rejected... which I now will get back under review... and now we are working on a very cool analysis of a questionnaire she created for kids!!), Lakeisha Johnson (her self-described passion project Maya's Book Nook - on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook! - is an incredible resource for the educational community as a whole and the definition of engaged scholarship. I've benefitted greatly from her insight, intelligence, and compassion this year, both through a manuscript she helped me revise and prepare for resubmission after several rounds of rejection and through the Reach Every Reader project, where she has contributed substantially to thinking about testing for kids who speak nonmainstream dialects, most particularly African American English - I am very excited to see where her work leads us!), Rihana Mason (brilliant scholar and leader - I had the opportunity to contribute to a publication lead by Dr. Mason in 2020 that sharply addressed some of the disparities present in educational testing and that scratched the surface of what we might be able to do as educators to better support all children), Nicole Patton-Terry (now-FCRR director!! Dr. Patton-Terry's research is exceptional, but her work beyond that - in mentoring, in conversing, in engaging with the community - is beyond words. Just take a listen to her podcast conversation with Tiffany Hogan on SeeHearSpeak)... and  this isn't even to mention the leadership of PIs Yaacov Petscher and Hugh Catts, two mentors who I continue to learn from every time we interact. I hope I can work toward the level of inquisitiveness and effort for excellence that they pursue daily. Also, Leah Fabiano-Smith (agreed to serve as Second Reader for Sarah Kate's honors thesis committee - she has contributed hugely, and does this entirely as a service to the profession) and Arielle Borovsky (sponsored my efforts in pursuing an F31 NIH application during my doctoral degree, not to mention her support of me in learning about eye-tracking research for my dissertation). These are some amazing folks. They go above and beyond daily. 
• Also, a few Academia-relevant podcasts I've really enjoyed this pandemic: AcaDames (rec from Suzanne Adlof), Within & Between, and  Quantitude.
• My therapist also. Everyone should have the opportunity to work with a therapist (personally, I support universal physical and mental health coverage. This is not our current reality). I was fortunate to connect with an incredible therapist during 2020 and can't recommend therapy enough - in whatever form works. Massive props to my therapist. 

I want to point to Maya Angelou's wise statement "in diversity there is beauty and there is strength"... and perhaps at least as importantly the first part of that statement "it is time for parents to teach young people early on...", recognizing that for many children the title of parent can belong to many different people, potentially not including biological parents. We all benefit from the existence of differences. Each of us have different strengths, weaknesses, skills, preferences... when we combine these we find deep beauty. It's tragic that we (including myself) fail to realize this reality so often. Looking forward to participating in and witnessing this change as we move forward as a human race. 

Another quote that has resonated with me deeply is from Althea Gibson (if you haven't had the privilege of learning about her, I highly recommend a quick online search - she is the definition of a badass): "No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you." We do nothing alone. This is not to de-value any individual human, but rather to recognize collective value, acknowledging that each of us rely on others. For some of us (especially those of us with white skin), gaining help from others comes easier. For others, finding help is harder for a myriad of reasons. It's simply unreasonable to take sole credit for where we are - yes, we may have worked hard to get to the point that we are at, but that may be just as true for the person next to you as it is for the person packing burgers for you (I worked as a Krystal Burger line cook for a summer right before starting graduate school at Florida State - I had the best co-workers in the world and learned so much from every single one of them). I think that Althea's perspective on accomplishment is incredibly helpful to hold onto. It reminds us to be thankful to those who have supported and who continue to support us, and to pay that forward in building others up. It's amazing what we can do with help from others (cue The Beatles "I get by with a little help from my friends...").