I am a Professor in the Department of Linguistics. I have appointments in the Cognitive Science Program, The Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT), the joint Program in Linguistics and Anthropology, the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies (MENAS), and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

My research is focused on various syntactic topics within Chomskyan theoretical framework. I have worked extensively on word order and scrambling, the interaction of syntax and discourse (focus and topic), the syntax, semantics and morphology of complex predicate constructions, and complex DPs (including relative clauses), among some other topics.  My current research includes control constructions, ellipsis, and the syntax and semantics of complex predicates in various Iranian languages.

I have published journal articles, book chapters, and one book length monograph. I have also edited/co-edited five books and a special issue for the journal Lingua. Graduate students I have supervised/am supervising include: Nayla Yateem, Jan Mohammad, Jason Ginsburg, Leila Lomashvi, Michael Anderson, Jerid Framcon, Jeff Punske, Greg Key, Deniz Tat, Mohsen Mahdavi, and Rana Nabors.