I am an Associate Professor of American Sign Language and Deaf Studies at California State University, Sacramento. I received a PhD in linguistics from The University of Texas at Austin. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I attended New Mexico State University where I majored in Kinesiology. After becoming increasingly interested in motor learning and development, I attended Gallaudet University for a Master's degree in Linguistics, allowing for a fusion of interests in motor skill acquisition combined with signed language acquisition. My current interests lie in adult acquisition of phonetics & phonology in ASL. My dissertation explores factors which contribute to successful comprehension of fingerspelling in ASL students, what causes errors in their comprehension, and how to help them improve their receptive skills.