My research examines the educational experiences of neurodivergent students who use English as an Additional Language (EAL) in higher education. Situated at the intersection of applied linguistics, the neurodiversity paradigm, and critical disability studies, my work explores how language, ability, and institutional norms shape access, belonging, and recognition within postsecondary institutions.

I am particularly interested in how ableist and normative frameworks within language education systems position neurodivergent multilingual students as deficient, in need of remediation, or outside normative expectations of academic success. By examining these assumptions, my research seeks to challenge deficit-oriented perspectives and highlight the diverse linguistic and cognitive resources that students bring to academic environments.

Dissertation Project

My doctoral research investigates the postsecondary experiences of neurodivergent students who speak English as an additional language. Drawing on narrative inquiry and counterstorytelling, I examine how institutional structures, language ideologies, and assumptions about ability shape students’ educational trajectories.

Through in-depth narrative interviews, this research centers the voices and lived experiences of neurodivergent multilingual students. The study explores how students navigate academic expectations, accommodation systems, and linguistic norms, while also highlighting the forms of resistance, adaptation, and knowledge that emerge from their experiences.

Future Research Directions

My future research will continue to explore how language education systems can move beyond deficit-based understandings of difference and toward more equitable and inclusive approaches to learning. I am particularly interested in examining how policies, pedagogical practices, and institutional structures can better support neurodivergent multilingual students in higher education. This work will continue to engage critical disability studies, raciolinguistics, and the neurodiversity paradigm to examine how langauge, pwer, and institutional norms shape educational access and belonging. 

Current Projects

Dissertation: Neurodivergent Multilingual Students in Higher Education

This narrative inquiry examines the postsecondary experiences of neurodivergent students who speak English as an additional language. Through counterstorytelling and in-depth interviews, the project explores how institutional structures, language ideologies, and assumptions about ability shape students’ educational trajectories.

Decolonizing ELT Narratives from the Global South

This collaborative narrative project examines how English language teaching professionals from the Global South resist dominant Western and Northern-centric ideologies in ELT. The study explores how educators draw on local epistemologies, lived experience, and community knowledge to reshape language teaching practices.

Disability Ethics in Applied Linguistics

This theoretical project argues for a re-examination of research ethics in applied linguistics and second language acquisition through a disability-informed, rights-based lens that centers the experiences and agency of disabled and neurodivergent participants.