Jennifer Nycz

Jennifer Nycz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, within the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on sociophonetics, particularly dialect contact and second dialect acquisition, exploring how mobile speakers adapt or resist regional accents to communicate social identities and attitudes. She holds a Ph.D. from New York University, alongside an M.A. from NYU and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Her expertise spans laboratory phonetics, sociolinguistics, and quantitative methods, with a focus on understanding linguistic variation as both a cognitive and social phenomenon. Notable research includes studies on vowel contrasts in dialect contact, media influence on language learning, and the role of stylistic variation in place identity. She has contributed to edited volumes such as Dialect Contact: From Speaker to Community-based Perspectives (2025) and has been recognized for her work on linguistic stability and malleability.

Nycz’s recent work examines the dynamics of dialect contact across speaker and community levels, emphasizing epistemic negotiations of identity. She has pioneered methodologies for analyzing vowel merger and maintains a focus on the intersection of technology and sociolinguistic research, including best practices for using digital media in phonetic analysis.

Her grants and collaborations include projects on second dialect acquisition and phonological representation, though specific award details are not listed. She currently maintains a sabbatical until Fall 2025 and actively engages with academic communities through platforms like ResearchGate and her personal website, jennifernycz.com.