User:Cecilemckee

I'm Professor Emerita of Linguistics at the University of Arizona. Most of my academic research concerns language and literacy development.^[1] When my lab was active, I focused mainly on grammatical systems like syntax and morphology, and on dysfluency in child language in order to better understand errors. My main colleagues in that research were Maria Emiliani (Unita Sanita Locale, Italy), Dana McDaniel (University of Southern Maine), Merrill F. Garrett (University of Arizona), and Sam J. Supalla (University of Arizona). I directed the Linguistics Program at the National Science Foundation from 2001 to 2003, and I did some university-internal research administration after that.

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I've participated in Wikipedia's Education Program twice, the more recent being a [course on theories of language development]. Graduate students in the more recent course worked on articles related to child language. I also taught a course about Wikipedia to members of Tucson's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, an enterprise providing education for people over 50 years of age.

I learned a lot while at the National Science Foundation about the broader impacts of publicly funded research. Already interested in public engagement around language and linguistics topics, I started working on science communication more broadly. I was honored to become a Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and my citation for that honor refers to my service in promoting public awareness of linguistics.^[2] With my colleague Laura Wagner (Ohio State University), I have written two books on this topic (e.g., How to Talk Language Science with Everybody, 2023, Cambridge University Press). I consider my work on Wikipedia to be part of that emphasis.

My personal interests emphasize food and drink. Connecting to these interests, I was for 10 years a volunteer docent at Mission Garden, a living agricultural museum in Tucson. Despite the challenges of desert gardening, I enjoy growing my own food in my own yard. For example, I've experimented with olla and straw bale gardening. Every couple of years, I learn to prepare a new kind of food. It was paella over the pandemic, and it's marmalade now because our Lisbon lemon is unusually productive this year. Also, I've raised several puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind and Canine Companions. My 13th raise is Baringa, who is similar to a "cell dog." Canine Companions owns the dog, and my co-raisers are inmates who participate in their Prison Puppy Raising Program to help train future service dogs.^[3]