Hi, my name is Nikita Bezrukov. I’m a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Cognitive Science Program at Barnard College and the Linguistics Program at Columbia University, and a Lecturer in Linguistics and Communication in the Department of Global Languages at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. My research uses formal linguistic tools to study language and language-like systems, especially writing systems and non-human communication. Before that, I was a postdoc at Princeton University, where I worked with Laura Kalin, and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania.
My primary research interests are in syntax and morphology: how grammar builds words and sentences, and how linguistic units are ordered, displaced, copied, and interpreted. I earned my Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where I worked with David Embick, Rolf Noyer, and Martin Salzmann.
An adjacent area of my research extends these concerns to writing systems and orthographic grammar, focusing on how linguistic representations are mapped onto graphic form. My current projects use tools from theoretical linguistics to model orthographic systems, evaluate the degree of featural representation in various writing systems, and formalize the structure of scripts from the ancient Mediterranean.
You can find more information about my work and interests on the Research page.
By the way, when I’m not doing linguistics, I’m listening to KayaKata or reflecting about life.
Mailing address
Department of Global Languages
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
50 Ames Street, E18-228
Cambridge, MA 02139