Michal Temkin Martinez, Ph.D.

An educator. I have been teaching at the college level since Fall 2001, and I find this to be my calling. I feel extremely fortunate to get to interact with students in and out of the classroom, and I find seeing them grow intellectually and emotionally to be extremely satisfying.

A linguist. I studied linguistics at California State University, Northridge and the University of Southern California. My training is in experimental phonology, but I also work in language documentation, working with community members who arrived in the United States as resettled refugees. My current research and administrative work focus on capacity building for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in the field of linguistics. I also teach linguistics at Boise State University and am the Chair of the Department of Linguistics.

An immigrant. I moved to the United States from the Middle East with my family when I was 11 years old. This is the reason I have a first name that’s hard to pronounce.

A cat lady. My husband and I have had five wonderful furry feline companions. All five have lived with us in the residence halls on campus, and most of them love hanging out with students (and humans in general) and enjoyed serving as Pets in Residents (PIRs, pronounced ‘purrs’) when we lived on campus for 8 years.

An amateur photographer. I enjoy taking photos and sharing them with others. I have taken a few classes, and won a couple of small local competitions.

Download my CV . For downloadable publications, click HERE.

Professor of Linguistics

This year marks my 15th year as a linguistics faculty member at Boise State University. My areas of specialty in linguistics are phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, and language documentation. I also actively engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). In addition to classroom teaching, I am the founding director of the Mary Ellen Ryder Linguistics Lab, and the inaugural chair of the Department of Linguistics.

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Associate Editor, Language (Teaching Linguistics)

I am proud to serve as co-Associate Editor of the Teaching Linguistics section of Language, the flagship journal of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). Our section showcases innovative pedagogy in the field of linguistics, empirical studies on teaching and learning of linguistics in higher education and K-12, and offers reviews of linguistics textbooks. My co-Associate Editor, Dr. Kazuko Hiramatsu, and I have received three National Science Foundation grants to co-facilitate a Faculty Learning Community on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in linguistics, and to build capacity in scholarly teaching in linguistics.

• I’ll be moderating a special session on Teaching Linguistics: A Glimpse into the Future at the 2024 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in January.
• This is my fifth year co-facilitating (with the awesome Dr. Kazuko Hiramatsu) a Faculty Learning Community on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Linguistics — we received an initial 1-year grant from the National Science Foundation to do this amazing work, and then got two more grants:
  • One for a conference for summer 2023
  • Another one for a workshop for summer 2024
• Selda Delsooz (undergraduate student in Business Management) and I delivered the closing plenary at the International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation on March 5th, 2023.
• In November 2022, I began volunteering at the Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey. I have served as both docent in the Interpre
• I co-taught a mini-course at the 2023 annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America on Thriving as an Early Career Faculty Member with Dr. Christina Bjorndahl, Dr. Ann Bunger, Dr. Jessi Grieser, Dr. Iara Mantenuto, and Dr. Miranda McCarvel.

c/o Department of Linguistics
1910 University Dr.
Boise, ID, 83725-1525
USA

michaltmartinez at boisestate dot edu

(208)426-4236

Follow me on social media:

Facebook: Michal Temkin Martinez
Twitter: @BSU_Linguist
Instagram: @michaltmartinez

I picked up photography as a hobby a few years ago, and I really enjoy taking and developing photos. I’ll try to share my photos here whenever I have new ones…

Flower Photography

In summer of 2020, I enrolled in an online course on the Art of Flower Photography, taught by Emma Davies. I have really enjoyed taking photos of flowers since then, and I have curated a series of 10 recent images featuring flowers grown by flower farmers in Idaho.

Street Photography in New York City

I was super fortunate to get to attend a 2-day street photography workshop led by Valérie Jardin. Here are some of my favorite shots from my time there.

Birds of Prey

Boise is home to the Peregrine Fund‘s World Center for Birds of Prey, and in the Fall, they host Fall Flight shows to educate the public about the Peregrine Fund’s work and the birds themselves. I recently began volunteering at the WCBOP, but I’ve attended their amazing Fall Flights for several years. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the shows I’ve been to over the past few years:

My entries at the Western Idaho Fair

I entered a few of my photos at the Western Idaho Fair in 2019 and 2023. Captions indicate the category the photo was entered under. Asterisks (* or ***) indicate first or third place prize in category.

First Trip to the Oregon Coast