Research Opportunities for Undergrads
Are you interested in becoming involved in linguistics research? The application period for Spring 2026 has now closed. Please check back in March when we will be recruiting candidates for Summer 2026.
APPLICATION PERIOD FOR SPRING 2026: November 17-27, 2025 (CLOSED)
FUTURE APPLICATION PERIODS:
Summer 2026: March, 2026
Fall 2026: July, 2026
Spring 2027: November, 2026
Note: The application period for the positions listed on this page has now closed. Opportunities for Summer 2026 will be posted in March. Available opportunities and a link to the application form will be added at that time.
Our research opportunities are either paid or volunteer, as noted in the description. Volunteer positions often lead to paid RAships in later semesters. The hours and length of commitment are variable, depending on the project. Paid RAships are funded by the supervisor's research grant or the Linguistics endowment fund.
Applications are assessed on the basis of academic excellence and stated qualifications. All applicants will be informed by email regarding the outcome of their submission.
| Professor, Project Information | Seeking Students? (Yes/No) and Further Details |
|---|---|
| Ashley Farris-Trimble Phonological processing, opacity, typology, learning Phonological Processing Lab: Seeking 1 volunteer RA (paid position may be available) to work with PhD candidate Danica Reid on the Northern Interior Salish Language Phonology project. The project will study Northern Interior Salish language phonology and may be done remotely. Duties may include:
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No (closed): 1 volunteer RA for Spring 2026 (paid position may be available) 5 hrs/wk (plus 1-hr weekly lab meeting) Qualifications:
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| Jozina Vander Klok Field linguistics, language documentation, language description, fieldwork methodologies, linguistic analysis Field Linguistics Research Lab: All interested students are invited to join the lab's weekly reading group discussions. The group meets weekly on Thursdays from 2-3pm, in-person or online. The focus is on research surrounding topics on language documentation, language description, fieldwork methodologies, as well as on linguistic analysis of data. The reading group began meeting in October, 2025 and started with several chapters from Applicative Constructions in the World's Languages (eds. Zúñiga & Creissels, 2024), with the goals of (i) building a dataset for systematic comparison of some of the morphosyntactic alternations and (ii) creating a questionnaire for linguistic field research. Anyone can join this research and discussion series; however, it is volunteer-only at this point. Students are also welcome to share ongoing research on this topic. Open to: Current SFU students ------------------------------ |
YES (ongoing, volunteer) 1-hr weekly meeting (drop-in) Qualifications:
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| Yue Wang Experimental phonetics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics Language and Brain Lab: Seeking 1-2 volunteer RAs to work on the project Adaptations in Conversation: Engaging voices, faces, brains and machines. Paid position may be available after a semester's involvement. Duties may include:
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No (closed): 1-2 volunteer RAs for Spring 2026 5 hrs/wk (plus 1-hr weekly lab meeting) Qualifications:
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| Yue Wang, Henny Yeung, Angelica Lim Human robot interaction (HRI), affective robotics, computational linguistics Breaking Barriers RA: Seeking one RA (paid) for the project "Creating adaptive vocal interfaces in human-AI interactions". NOTE: This position (originally posted in the Fall) was put on hold, and start date shifted to 2026. If you applied for this position in September, please do not re-apply; we have your application and it is under consideration. As AI voice assistants become more prevalent, it is essential to address how they manage communication challenges. This research study aims to explore how both people and AI systems adapt to misunderstandings and develop more effective, user-friendly voice technology for real-world use. In this project, you will learn how to develop and deploy code on the Pepper robot in combination with web applications, as well as run a human robot interaction (HRI) experiment to collect participant data. There is also an opportunity to analyse and prepare audio data for post-experiment analysis. This research study is a collaboration between the SFU Language and Brain Lab and Language Learning and Development Lab in the Department of Linguistics, as well as the Rosie Lab in the School of Computing Science. Responsibilities include:
Open to: Current SFU undergraduate students in Computing Science, Linguistics, or related fields. ------------------------------ |
No (closed): 1 RA (paid) for Spring 2026 5 hrs/wk (including 1-hr weekly lab meeting). Renewable for an additional semester (until end of August 2026). Requirements:
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If you have any questions about these opportunities or about the application process, please contact the Research Grants and Projects Coordinator.