Education
Pennsylvania State University | 2015 – 2020
PhD in Spanish and Language Science | Conferred August 2020
MA in Spanish Linguistics | Conferred May 2017
University of Florida | 2011 – 2014
BA in Linguistics and Spanish | Conferred December 2014
Experience
Post-Doctoral Research Associate | Applied Research Lab for Intelligence and Security, UMD.
2020 – Present. Analysis of neurophysiological data (EEG and pupillometry) coupled with transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation. Dr. Polly O’Rourke and Dr. Stefanie Kuchinsky (advisors)
Data Analyst | Second Language Research Lab, CUNY
June 2020 – Present. Analysis of pupillometry, behavioral, and survey data. Dr. Gita Martohardjono (advisor)
Graduate Researcher | The Brain-Tracking Lab, Penn State
2015 – Present. Investigating codemixing and bilingual language processing using eye-tracking, pupillometry, production, and behavioral data. Dr. Paola E. Dussias (advisor)
Graduate Researcher | The Multigrammar Lab, Penn State
2015 – Present. Investigating empirical approaches to bilingual language processing and production and theoretical approaches to bilingual linguistic representation. Dr. Matthew T. Carlson (advisor)
Research Assistant | Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, Penn State.
Aug. – Dec. 2017. Analyzing the New Mexico Spanish-English Bilingual Corpus using scripts written in the programming language R. Dr. Rena Torres Cacoullos (advisor)
Undergraduate Researcher | Language and Brain Lab, The University of Florida
2013 – 2015. Investigating the processing of codeswitched sentences using behavioral, eye-tracking, and EEG methodologies. Dr. Edith Kaan, Dr. Jorge Valdés Kroff (co-advisors)
Skills
Eye-Tracking
Reading, Pupillometry, and Visual World
SR Research EyeLink 1000+, EyeLink 1000, and Portable DUO Eye-Trackers
SR Research Experiment Builder and Data Viewer
R program for statistical analysis
analysis and interpretation of data using multilevel modelling (linear mixed-effects modelling), generalized additive mixed-effects modelling, survival/time-to-event analysis, random forests, conditional inference trees, principle components analysis, k-fold cross validation (packages used: blme, buildmer, gamm4, ggplot2, itsadug, lme4, mgcv, nlme, quanteda, survival, tidyverse, visreg)
Publications
Lowry, C., Madsen II, C. N., Phillips, I., Johns, M. A., Martohardjono, G., & Schwartz, R. G. (under review). Bilingual Judgments and Processing of Spanish Wh- Gap Constructions: An Exploratory Study of Cross-Linguistic Influence and Island Strength. Proceedings of the Experimental Psycholinguistics Conference.
Johns, M. A., & Dussias, P. E. (under review). The psycholinguistic status of nonce borrowings: Testing the role of morphosyntactic integration during online comprehension. Language.
Johns, M. A., & Steuck, J. (under review). Is codeswitching easy or difficult? Testing processing cost through the prosodic structure of bilingual speech. Cognition.
López-Beltrán, P., Johns, M. A., Lozano, C., Palma, A., & Dussias, P. E. (accepted). The effects of information structure in the processing of word order variation in the second language. Second Language Research
Johns, M. A., Rodrigo, L., Winneg, A., Guzzardo-Tamargo, R. E., & Dussias P. E. (accepted). Priming and Persistence in Bilinguals: What codeswitching tells us about the time course of lexical priming in sentential contexts. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
Dussias, P. E., Fricke, M., Johns, M. A., & Kroll, J. F. (2020). Language Contact in the Lab. In Adamou, E. & Matros, Y. (Eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Language Contact. Taylor & Francis.
Dussias, P. E., Valdés Kroff, J. R., Johns, M. A., & Villegas, A. (2019). How bilingualism affects syntactic processing in the native language: Evidence from eye movements. In M.S. Schmid & B. Köpke (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Language Attrition. Oxford University Press. Invited submission.
Johns, M. A. & Putnam, M. T. (2019). Language membership as a gradient emergent feature. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 22(4), 701-702. doi:10.1017/S136672891800072X.
Johns, M. A., Valdés Kroff, J. R., & Dussias, P. E. (2019). Mixing Things Up: How blocking and mixing affect the processing of codemixed sentences. International Journal of Bilingualism, 23(2), 584-611. doi:10.1177/2F1367006917752570.
Dussias, P. E., Valdés Kroff, J. R., Beatty-Martínez, A., & Johns, M. A. (2019). What Language Experience Tells us about Cognition: Variable Input and Interactional Contexts Affect Bilingual Sentence Processing. In J. W. Schwieter (Ed.) The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Multilingualism. Wiley. Invited submission.
Dussias, P. E., Beatty-Martínez, A. L., Johns, M. A., & Pulido-Azpíroz, M. (2019). Sentence Processing in Monolingual and Bilingual Speakers. In M. Aronoff (Ed.) Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics. Oxford University Press.
Torres Cacoullos, R., Lacasse, D., Johns, M. A., & De La Rosa, J. (2017). El subjuntivo: hacia la rutinización [The subjunctive: toward routinization]. Moenia, 23(2).
Johns, M. A., Rodrigo, L., & Dussias, P. E. (in prep). Increased cognitive demands facilitate the processing of codeswitched sentences. To be submitted May 2020.
Awards and Funding
NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant | 2018 - 2019 | $17, 096
NSF PIRE II Fellowship | Spring 2018 | $6,500
NSF PIRE I Fellowship | Summer 2017 | $6,500
Superior Teaching and Excellence Award | September 2016 | $1,250
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship | 2015-2020 | $138,000
University Graduate Fellowship | 2015-2020 | $121,400
Graduate Scholar Award | September 2015 | $1,000
Presentations and Posters
Johns, M. A., & Dussias, P. E. (2020). Comparing the processing of single-word and multi-word codeswitches during bilingual spoken language comprehension. Poster presentation for The CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, 19-21 March [Note: Conference cancelled due to COVID-19].
Johns, M. A., & Dussias, P. E. (2019). The Psycholinguistic Status of Lone Other-Language Items: Nonce or Not? Poster presentation for Hispanic Linguistics Symposium 2019, University of Texas – El Paso, El Paso, Texas, 24-26 October.
Johns, M. A., Rodrigo, L., Winneg, A., Guzzardo-Tamargo, R. E., & Dussias P. E. (2019). Priming and Persistence in Bilinguals: What codeswitching tells us about the time course of lexical priming in sentential contexts. Oral presentation for International Symposium of Bilingualism 12, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 23-28 June.
Johns, M. A., Puscama, M. G., & Carlson, M. T. (2019). It Just Takes Time: Refining asymmetric switch costs using pupillometry. Oral presentation for International Symposium of Bilingualism 12, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 23-28 June.
Johns, M. A., & Steuck, J. (2019). The Ease of Codeswitching: Testing processing cost through the prosodic structure of bilingual speech. Invited presentation for the Language Sciences Colloquium, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, WI, 2 May.
Johns, M. A., & Steuck, J. (2018). The Ease of Codeswitching: Testing processing cost through the prosodic structure of bilingual speech. Oral presentation for New Ways of Analyzing Variation 47, New York University, New York City, NY, 18-21 October.
Johns, M. A. & Steuck, J. (2018). Evaluating Easy-First in Codeswitching: A corpus approach. 9th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics, Queens College, Queens, New York, 4-7 April.
Torres Cacoullos, R., LaCasse, D., & Johns, M. A. (2017). Advancing routinization vs. productivity of the Spanish subjunctive. Oral presentation for New Ways of Analyzing Variation 46, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 2-5 November.
Johns, M. A. (2017). Why mixed models? A soft introduction to R and mixed-effects models. Invited presentation for Centro de Investigación Cerebro, Mente y Comportamiento [Research Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior], Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain.
Johns, M. A., Valdés Kroff, J, & Dussias, P. E. (2017). Mixing Things Up: The Effects of Blocking and Mixing on the Processing of Codeswitched Sentences. Oral presentation for International Symposium of Bilingualism 11, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland, 11-15 June.
Johns, M. A., Valdés Kroff, J, & Dussias, P. E. (2017). Mixing Things Up: The Effects of Blocking and Mixing on the Processing of Codeswitched Sentences. Poster presentation for Bilingualism in the Hispanic and Lusophone World 2, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. 27-29 Jan. (Poster)
Johns, M. A., Valdés Kroff, J., & Dussias, P. E. (2016). Mixing Things Up: The Effects of Blocking and Mixing on the Comprehension of Codeswitched Sentences. Oral presentation for Interdisciplinary Approaches to Codeswitching, Cambridge University, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 3-4 Oct. (Oral Presentation)
Mayans-Ramon, D., Johns, M. A. (2015). Heritage speakers’ and second language learners’ processing of non-adjacent noun-adjective agreement. Oral presentation for International Symposium of Bilingualism 10, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. 20-24 May. (Oral Presentation)
Johns, M. A. (2015). Code-Switching at a Distance: Effects on Gender Agreement in Spanish. Oral presentation for Creating Linguistic Worlds: Student Research Symposium, The University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. 19-22 March. (Oral Presentation)
Mayans-Ramon, D., Johns, M. A. (2015). Heritage speakers’ and second language learners’ processing of non-adjacent noun-adjective agreement. Oral presentation for Bilingualism in the Hispanic and Lusophone World 1, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands. 14-16 Jan. (Oral Presentation)
Teaching
Workshop Coordinator | Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, Penn State
Sept. 2018 – April 2019. Designed and taught a weekly workshop on the design, implementation, and analyses involved in pupillometry studies.
Instructor | Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, Penn State
Jan. 2018 – May 2018. SPAN 497: Being Bilingual in a Monolingual World
July 2016. SPAN 002: Intensive Spanish 2
Content Tutor | University of Florida Athletic Association
2014 – 2015. Tutored undergraduate Spanish and Linguistics students.
Service
PSUxLing Undergraduate Research Exhibition | Organizer, 2016 – 2018
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Graduate Student Org. | President | 2017 – 2018
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Graduate Student Org. | GPSA Representative | 2016 – 2017
Phi Beta Kappa | Member | 2014 – Present
Linguistics Society at the University of Florida | Founder, President | 2013 – 2015
Gator Freethought | President | 2012 – 2015
Languages
English | Native
Spanish | Advanced proficiency and comprehension
Portuguese | Intermediate proficiency and comprehension