Our graduate students are amazing, and they frequently surprise us with the degree of their achievements and dedication. Spring semester was no exception as PhD student in French, Laurene Glimois, received a number of prestigious and well-earned awards.
Glimois is writing her dissertation in the field of Second Language Acquisition. Her research is looking at how different types of instruction and personal characteristics of the language learner affect how people acquire grammar. In March, Glimois won a highly competitive national award from the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Association to support her dissertation research. Although in the end she had to choose between two prizes, she also received a second award from the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (her dissertation also focuses on the acquisition of Chinese).
The recognition goes a long way for Glimois, whose research depends on collecting data from human subjects. With the help of the award, she has been able to pay students in exchange for participating in her study, ensuring that she has adequate data to base her conclusions on. Now that the data has been collected, Glimois is gearing up for the most exciting part of the project: analyzing the data and completing the dissertation. She plans to spend the summer doing just that while visiting family in Europe.
In addition to excelling in her research, Glimois is also a phenomenal teacher. In April, she received one of 10 Graduate Associate Teacher Awards (GATA) offered by the Graduate School. Graduate Associates are nominated for this prestigious award by their undergraduate students. Approximately 3,000 students serve as GTAs annually, so this is quite the achievement!
Wynne Wong, Glimois’ dissertation advisor, is thrilled with her advisee’s achievements and believes they are very well merited. "It is so gratifying to see a graduate student's hard work and dedication to her research and teaching formally recognized both inside and outside OSU. I can't think of a more deserving recipient than Laurene. I know I am her advisor but she has also inspired and energized me this year!"
At home, Glimois is raising Ettore, who is 20 month old. Glimois speaks French to her son, while her husband, a graduate student in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, speaks Italian. “Ettore is taking his time acquiring languages,” jokes Glimois, adding that he prefers climbing and pointing to speaking.
