I was born in Poland and moved to the U.S. at age 6. Often I am asked, “What part of Poland are you from?” and my honest response is “the Chicago part.” I am proud to be a heritage speaker of Polish, a language that I speak daily, intuitively, and imperfectly. Accepting this fact, that I won't ever speak Polish like a monolingual, took years of reconciling some sense of language loss. Growing up bilingual from an early age, acquiring additional languages later, and teaching language to others have been the driving force behind the work that I do. 

I completed my Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at UC Davis. Before coming to UC Santa Cruz in 2008, I was Assistant Professor at Michigan State University (2004-2008), where I served as faculty director of the study abroad program in Querétaro, Mexico. Here at UCSC, I teach a variety of courses in Spanish language, applied linguistics, and language teaching methodology. One thing that I have come to appreciate over the years is that our language knowledge is much more dynamic and malleable than most people assume. Languages, especially those that are spoken only in the home and in family contexts, must constantly be nurtured in order to develop and be maintained.