Linguist encounters enthusiastic students

In what has turned out to be just one stop on a teaching tour of the Big Ten schools, Teresa Satterfield joined I.U.'s Department of Linguistics as a visiting assistant professor during Summer Session II 1996. Coming from a teaching position at University of Iowa and preparing to join the faculty at University of Michigan, Dr. Satterfield distinguished herself during her stay at I.U. as the fellow with the largest teaching load, a combined graduate and undergraduate section of thirty students for "Introduction to Linguistic Analysis." Dr. Satterfield challenged her students with high standards, and they rewarded her with a seriousness about their work that she says she had not encountered in previous teaching experiences. "The students I see here are enthusiastic about their studies and very active in coming to office hours," she comments.

Dr. Satterfield has had many students to compare with these. In addition to her teaching experience at the University of Iowa, where she earned her Ph.D. in Spanish Linguistics in 1995, she has taught at the University of Illinois-Chicago (where she earned an M.A. in 1990), at Kirkwood Community College in eastern Iowa, and for four years in the Spanish departments of the Perry, Iowa Junior and Senior High Schools.

In her research, Dr. Satterfield applies genetic algorithms--which help scholars to employ Darwinian principles to search through and optimize large volumes of data--to the process of language acquisition, especially in bilingual individuals. Her dissertation is entitled "Bilingual Selection of Syntactic Knowledge." Other areas of research interest include theoretical syntax and historical and comparative Romance linguistics. When she was not teaching, grading, or meeting with students this summer, Dr. Satterfield took advantage of I.U.'s extensive libraries to gather further information about genetic algorithms and to prepare for a research project she plans to begin this fall at the University of Michigan where she has accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor of Spanish and Linguistics.

Despite weekends full of travel to see family and hurried apartment-hunting in Ann Arbor, Dr. Satterfield still managed to squeeze in a little bit of fun. Socializing with other fellows and trying out Bloomington's jazz scene rounded out her time here.

Overall, it is the professional opportunity for which Dr. Satterfield will remember I.U. "I'm still growing as a teacher and as a researcher," Satterfield reflects, "and MFFP has contributed to that."