Students awarded linguistics internships

Two undergraduate students in the College of Rural and Community Development, Alicia Smoke and Dante Burk, have been awarded summer internships in linguistics at the University of Oregon. 

Smoke is from Tyonek and is interested in learning about her heritage language, Dena'ina. She is a math major and is also studying to become a certified nursing assistant. 

Burk, whose family comes from both Venetie and Nenana, is interested in learning about his heritage language, Gwich'in. He is majoring in business.

The REU internship is a fully funded eight-week summer program designed to give American Indian/Alaska Native students research experience in experimental and descriptive linguistics. The program incorporates participants' experiences with indigenous languages and language revitalization into hands-on research that is both culturally and professionally meaningful. Smoke and Burk will conduct hands-on research at UO's language revitalization and speech perception and production labs.