Katherine Yaw

Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and Graduate Program Director

Dr. Kate Yaw (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of World Languages at USF. Her research investigates the role of listeners in successful oral communication, with an emphasis on perception and production of speech, language attitudes, and cognitive processing of L2-accented speech. She also focuses on research methodology and quantitative research ethics.

Kate’s work has appeared in scholarly journals such as Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Language Teaching, Psychology of Language and Communication, Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, and TESOL Quarterly, as well as in edited volumes like Linguistic discrimination in US higher education (Clements & Petray-Covey), When we hear them: Tools to attune teachers’ ears to voices of language-diverse learners (Silverman Andrews & Tomlin), and Ethical issues in applied linguistics scholarship (DeCosta, Rabie-Ahmed, & Cinaglia). She is a co-author of Addressing questionable research practices in applied linguistics (2024, available open access through Applied Linguistics Press). She is also currently the PI on the NSF-funded project “AI-related questionable research practices in academic publishing”, working with collaborators at Northern Arizona University, Indiana State University, and Uppsala University.

At USF, Kate is a core faculty member for the MA Applied Linguistics program and the PhD program in Linguistics and Applied Language Studies. She teaches courses such as LIN 6675 (Grammatical Structure of American English), LIN 6720 (Second Language Acquisition), LIN 6932 (Sound Systems of American English), and TSL 5440 (Language Testing).

Kate received her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Northern Arizona University (2022), her MA in TESOL from the American University in Washington, DC (2008), and her B.A. in Anthropology and Spanish from the University of Pittsburgh (2005).