I have been a member of The University of Edinburgh’s Linguistics and English Language Department since 2014, first as a postoctoral fellow and, as of April 2021, as Lecturer.

My research is mostly within the scope of the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics (AMC). I work on the historical phonology and morphology of Mapudungun, the ancestral language of the Mapuche people of south-central Chile and Argentina, as well as on the early sounds and spellings of the Scots language. I also have an interest in the languages of the Americas more broadly and their contribution to linguistic diversity and linguistic theory.

I recently completed a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship entitled “Digital methods in New-World language change: Words & sounds in older Mapudungun”. The project allowed me to build and mine the first stages of the Corpus of Historical Mapudungun. I am also a member of the From Inglis to Scots (FITS) project, which is charged with creating a corpus of grapho-phonological correspondences for some of the earliest Scots documents.

Originally from Santiago, Chile, I began my work life as a secondary-school Philosophy and English teacher, both on the southern island of Chiloé, and in New York City state schools. At times, I’ve also worked in adult education and HR consultancy in Santiago and as a freelance pronunciations editor for the Oxford English Dictionary.

Download my CV (in English) / Descargue mi CV (en Español)