I grew up in
Campbell, California, a suburb of San José in the Silicon Valley. I attended
Archbishop Mitty High School in San José, where I developed interests in literature, philosophy, and the Spanish language. In 2004, I went to
UC Santa Cruz and started taking classes in linguistics after a lucky encounter with someone from the department during summer orientation. I was also fortunate enough to study abroad at the
University of York, where I took courses in phonetics and language variation. Upon my return to Santa Cruz, however, I was quickly drawn to syntax, the area in which I now work. I completed my BA with department honors in 2008, and stayed at Santa Cruz to pursue a masters degree. After finishing this in 2010, I moved to Northampton, MA, to pursue my PhD at
UMass Amherst. I completed the PhD in 2016 and stayed at UMass for a year teaching. I'm currently a visiting assistant professor at the
University of Toronto.