Current progress towards my degree

I am currently funded by a Dissertation Completion Fellowship given by the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University. This fellowship requires that I complete my PhD by the end of the 2026-27 academic year.

I am currently finishing my dissertation manuscript and working on manuscripts that are at all stages of the publication process: in preparation, under review, undergoing revision, and awaiting proofs.

Education background

While completing my undergraduate degrees in French (BA) and Linguistics (BS) at Truman State University (2021), I studied abroad (2019) at l’Université Catholique de l’Ouest in Angers, France, where I became interested in minority language use and their linguistic variation. I then received my MA in French Linguistics from IU (2023), where I am currently completing my PhD.

Contacting me

I am most easily contacted through email (kaitowen@iu.edu) – I typically respond within a couple of business days and love connecting with other scholars!

Collaborators, fellow graduate students, and mentors

Numerous people have made the work that I do possible, whether as a research collaborator, as a supervisor/mentor who has helped shape my view of research and how I approach scholarship, and/or as a fellow graduate student who has gone on their academic journey alongside me over the past 5 years.

I recognize all of these individuals below and provide links to their websites/university profiles. Please feel free to check out them and their work – I am immensely proud to know and learn from each of them.

Graduate students:

• Justina Eshun, PhD student in French Linguistics at Indiana University
• Claire Henderson, PhD student in Lingusitics at Georgetown University
• Griffin Lowry, PhD student in Linguistics at Indiana Univeristy
• Amalia Robinson, PhD student in Linguistics at Indiana Univeristy
• Grayson Ziegler, PhD student in Linguistics at Indiana Univeristy

Faculty:

• Marie Bissell, Assistant Professor in Linguistics at University of Texas-Arlington
• Xiao Dong, Visiting Assistant Professor in Linguistics and Chinese at Reed College
• Michael Dow, Associate Professor in Linguistics at Université de Montréal
• Monica Nesbitt, Assistant Professor in Linguistics at Indiana University
• Jeff Lamontagne, Adjunct Professor in Linguistics at McGill University and Concordia University and in French Linguistics at Indiana University
• Emily Long Olsen, Assistant Professor in Linguistics at Truman State Unviersity
• David Tézil, Assistant Professor in French Linguistics at University of Alabama
• Anne-José Villeneuve, Associate Professor of Linguistics at University of Alberta – Campus St. Jean
• Malcah Yaeger-Dror, retired Professor of Linguistics at University of Arizona