Pardis Derakhshandeh

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at Stony Brook University , where I work on syntax and morphology. I joined the program in 2021 and am advised by Dr. Francisco Ordóñez . My research focuses on complex alignment systems: what gives rise to them, how apparently complicated agreement patterns are built from smaller pieces of grammatical structure, and what theoretical architecture is needed to model them. I pursue these questions through Behbahani, a Southwestern Iranian language whose split alignment patterns make these mechanisms empirically visible.

Alongside this formal work, I am involved in language documentation and resource-building for underdocumented languages, combining fieldwork, corpus development, and computational modeling with theoretical analysis. This work is grounded in a broader interest in language rights and linguistic diversity, and in how documentation and language technologies can support marginalized and understudied language communities. I am particularly interested in developing computational tools and AI more responsibly for languages often left out of mainstream linguistic research and technology development.

Beyond my core research, I care about educational equity, particularly what accessibility means inside the classroom. To me, accessibility goes beyond financial access: it means designing materials, pedagogy, and classroom practices that are genuinely usable by students with different needs. I see this as a shared responsibility for instructors and material designers, not only in what we teach, but in how we teach it.