Originally from Montenegro, I first came to the United States in Fall 2010 as a non-degree exchange student sponsored by the U.S. State Department. In 2012, I joined St. Cloud State university's MA program in Teaching English as a Second Language. During this time, my interest in L2 pronunciation developed, and I attended my first Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching (PSLLT) conference in 2013 in Ames IA. This was my first visit to Iowa State University, which is when I met Dr. John Levis and learned more about his work and the work done at the Applied Linguistics & Technology (ALT) program. In Fall 2015, I joined the ALT PhD program and have since graduated. 

During my time at Iowa State, I was involved in several research projects, one of which was the Golden Speaker Builder project, funded by the National Science Foundation, with Dr. John Levis and Dr. Evgeny Chukharev-Hudilainen as primary investigators, and in collaboration with a team of computer scientists from Texas A&M University. This four-year endeavor resulted in two main products: L2-Arctic, a phonetically-annotated database of non-native speech, and the Golden Speaker Builder, The publication describing L2-Arctic can be accessed here, and our journal article that outlines the design and testing of the Golden Speaker Builder can be found here. These experiences led me to develop a passion for exploring the ways we can use technology to facilitate optimal language learning.

In collaboration with Anurag Das, an M.Sc. student in Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, we created a program that performs automatic real-time vowel formant extraction and plotting called Vowel Viewer. My dissertation developed and evaluated the effectiveness of this program for L2 vowel production improvement. 

Other than being actively involved in research, I am also a teacher. Over the years, I taught a variety of ESL classes, academic writing to both native and non-native speakers, linguistics, and business communication classes. Additionally, I had the privilege of co-teaching two graduate-level applied linguistics classes. My teaching approach has developed in such way that its center is the student. I am a strong believer that students are the main source of the learning process. This approach keeps my classroom vibrant, and encourages students to take an active role in their learning and the learning of their peers. My role in the classroom is that of a guide to this learning process, but also a learner - I love learning from students and exploring their perspectives. 

Above all, I enjoy sharing my knowledge with other teachers, and especially those who are interesting in harnessing the power of technology to provide an optimal learning experience to their students. Therefore, I am an active participant in many conferences and use every opportunity available to me to share the knowledge I obtained throughout my career.