Oksana Tkachman Email: tox.cs84@gmail.com

Research Assistant. I became interested in sign language research while studying with Prof. Wendy Sandler. My MA thesis project focused on the noun/verb distinction in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) and Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL). I was also involved in the preparation of the dictionary of ABSL.
I currently work on compounding in ISL and ABSL, focusing primarily on general characteristics and developmental patterns of this basic morphological mechanism in the early stages of language development.

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Email: hmorga01@campus.haifa.ac.ilPost-doctoral researcher. I completed my PhD at the University of California San Diego in 2017, writing a phonological grammar of Kenyan Sign Language. My research primarily focuses on the…

Assaf Israel During the time I had worked at the lab, my main interest has been the way manual gestures are constrained in the production of sign language. The set…

Email: kate.a.mesh@gmail.com My research focus is on the use of gestures by hearing and deaf people who inhabit the same community. I investigate how signers adapt conventional gestural practices of…

Itamar Kastner

A graduate student at New York University and formerly a research assistant at the lab. My main interest was sign language phonology, namely the way it takes form in emerging sign languages and its interplay with syntax, the structure of sentences. The way people combine sounds or signs to create meaning is a fundamental part of language, but this happens slightly differently in new sign languages. Our lab examines this using both theoretical and experimental methods.Nowadays I study the interplay of morphology and syntax, that is, the way we build up words and the way we build up sentences.

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Christina Healy

I am a doctoral candidate at Gallaudet University, and previously worked with the SLRL as a Fulbright scholar (http://www.fulbright.org.il). For that project we compared prosodic features such as manual rhythm and facial movements in Israeli Sign Language and American Sign Language. We found some similarities in how the languages use these features for grammatical purposes, which may point to universal features of the sign language modality. We also found language-specific forms that characterize the prosodic systems of each language.

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Sharon Ross Email: smr@ling.ohio-state.edu

I completed my master’s degree in linguistics at The Ohio State University, where my studies focused on first language acquisition in spoken languages. Through my research both in the Developmental Language and Cognition Lab and in the Spanish Psycholinguistics Lab, I investigated the development of children’s ability to interpret the meanings of various prosodic structures.

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Email: davnon37@gmail.com

I started working as a video editor in the Sign Language Lab in 2014. I am deaf. I am a graduate of Gallaudet University, Washington D.C., USA, a Deaf university (www.gallaudet.edu). Currently, I use Israeli Sign Language and American Sign Language. In my profession I am a graphic designer. In addition, I have been teaching sign language since 2009.

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