Ala Simonchyk, Ph.D.

Instructional Associate Professor of Linguistics

Ala Simonchyk obtained her dual Ph.D. in Second Language Studies and Slavic Linguistics from Indiana University (2017). Her research interests focus on second language speech processing, experimental phonetics, and pedagogy. Dr. Simonchyk investigates how the phonological domains of perception, production, lexical encoding, and orthography interact with each other in the acquisition of second language phonologies. Her research has been featured in the journals “Language and Speech” and “Second Language Research”. She also served as the Head of the Summer Russian Program at Indiana University (2022-2024) and conducted research on the use of a native language in an intensive immersion language program. At the University of Mississippi, Dr. Simonchyk has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on linguistics, language processing, second language acquisition, and pedagogy. 

Gender Studies -Related Research Interests: The effects of gender on language learning choices and experiences, such as goals, motivations, learning strategies and patterns of interaction