I’m Ian Michalski.

I’m an applied linguist with special expertise in second language acquisition and sociolinguistics. I primarily work with Spanish and English language data.

I completed my Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics at Indiana University. I am now an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Roanoke College where I teach courses in Spanish and Hispanic Linguistics.

When I took my first Spanish class, as a sixth grader in upstate New York, I developed a visceral interest in the Spanish language. I am blessed to have a “calling”—I feel strongly about language as the most fundamental element of how humans forge meaningful connections and communicate with one another.

I look at linguistics through a global lens.  I majored in World Languages and Political Science at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania. I earned my master’s in Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech.  I had the privilege of studying at Indiana University, where I earned my master’s degree in Hispanic Linguistics and my Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics.  In 2021, I defended my dissertation, “The Sociolinguistic Perception of Stylistic Variation in A Second Language: Attitudes toward four variable structures of Spanish.”

I have presented my research at the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, the Linguistic Association of the Southwest Annual Meeting, and the annual meeting of the American Association of Applied Linguistics. I have a book chapter titled “L2 Sociolinguistic Perception of Stylistic Variation: Attitudes toward two variable linguistic features of Spanish” featuring innovative empirical work stemming from my dissertation that was published in a volume titled Innovative Approaches to Research in Hispanic Linguistics: Diachronic, Regional and Learner Profile Variation (John Benjamins). My article, “Morphological case and argument structure variation with hybrid Spanish-Yucatec Maya verbs: ‘hacer + V” in monolingual Yucatán Spanish” was published by the Berkeley Linguistics Society.  A chapter titled, “L2 classrooms as multifaceted sources of input: The synergy of variationist and usage-based approaches,” that I co-authored with a team of colleagues, was published in the edited volume, Usage-Inspired L2 Instruction: Researched Pedagogy (John Benjamins).

I live in Roanoke, VA with my husband Alejandro.  When I’m not teaching, researching, or writing, I’m cooking Lebanese/Yucatecan food, fly fishing, playing volleyball, doing crossfit, or planning my next trip.