Teresa Satterfield

Professor Teresa Satterfield is a faculty member in the Department of Romance Languages & Literatures at the University of Michigan, with courtesy appointments in the Combined Program of Education and Psychology (CPEP) and Linguistics. She holds a B.A. and B.S. from Iowa State University (1985), an M.A. from the University of Illinois-Chicago (1990), and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa (1995). Her research focuses on bilingualism, first language acquisition, syntactic theory, and language contact phenomena, particularly in the context of Afro-Latinx communities. She uses fNIRS neuroimaging to study bilingual children's syntactic development and literacy, and founded the community program En Nuestra Lengua (ENL) for Spanish-speaking children. She received the 2022 LSA award for contributions to race and ethnicity instruction.

Research Highlights: Satterfield explores how psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors shape grammatical development in bilingual children, including studies on object clitics in heritage Spanish speakers and Afro-Spanish language varieties in the U.S. She also models language as a Complex Adaptive System, integrating computational approaches with empirical data.

Awards:

• 2022 Individual Award for Outstanding Contributions to Race & Ethnicity Instruction (College of LSA)

Advising & Outreach: Directs ENL, a Saturday academic program for Spanish-speaking children, and collaborates on service-learning curricula. Teaches courses on bilingualism, Spanish morphosyntax, and Afro-Hispanic languages.

Labs/Teams: Leads neuroimaging research collaborations with institutions like the University of Michigan's CPEP program, focusing on bilingual brain development and literacy.