Brief Background
I was born in București, Romania, and grew up around the United States. I came to Canada in August of 1999 and have been very thankful for it: Toronto is a wonderful city and I'm happy to call it home.
I realized at some point in high school that I really liked languages, but only saw them as a side interest at first. By the end of my BSc in the life sciences, however, I was ready for a change. I got my MA in Linguistics from U of T, and loved it enough to get my PhD as well!
Other Interests
When I'm not busy being a linguist, I keep myself occupied with delicious food (particularly Ethiopian food, any and all kinds of Asian cuisine, and cheeses), board games, photography, knitting, building and painting miniatures, and building mechanical keyboards. When I am busy being a linguist, I keep myself occupied by teaching, fiddling with LaTeX, troubleshooting Linux, scripting repetitive tasks, teaching myself to program, learning various languages, and discovering fascinating things that are sadly tangential to my immediate work.