Michelle Yuan

Michelle Yuan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Previously, she held the same position at UC San Diego from 2019 to 2023. She earned her PhD in Linguistics from MIT, alongside a BA and MA in Linguistics from the University of Toronto.

Her research focuses on theoretical syntax and the syntax-morphology interface, particularly examining case, agreement, and movement phenomena in ergative languages. She specializes in Inuktitut and Inuit-Yupik-Unangan languages, with recent work on San Juan Piñas Mixtec (Tò’ōn Ndá’ví). Her investigations emphasize morphosyntactic properties of pronominal clitics, tonal systems, and language documentation for reclamation efforts.

Recent publications explore clitic coalescence in Mixtec, morphological conditions in Inuktitut noun incorporation, and tonal analysis in Mixtec. Her work often combines formal syntactic theory with fieldwork-driven data from underdocumented languages.

Collaborations include projects with Gabriela Caballero, Claudia Juárez Chávez, and Indigenous language experts, focusing on linguistic resource development. Her research bridges formal syntax with applied documentation, addressing both theoretical and sociolinguistic dimensions of language preservation.