Ken Safir is a professor in the department of linguistics at Rutgers University, a department he helped to found in 1989, seven years after receiving his Ph.D. from MIT. He is a linguistic theorist and syntactician with interests in the syntax-semantics interface and the nature of linguistic of anaphora in particular. He served has also served as editor of the Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, of which he was also one of the founding editors. He has studied definiteness effects, the null subject parameter, crossover effects, small clauses, parasitic gaps, the structure of nominals and relative clauses and many other phenomena, but for the last 15 years much of his work has been devoted to the locality and interpretation of anaphoric relations and the connection between these relations and the morphology of anaphors, as evidenced by many of his recent publications, including The Syntax of Anaphora, published in 2004 by Oxford University Press, and The Syntax of (In)Dependence, published by MIT Press, also in 2004. In addition to new work on transitivity and reflexivity informed by his work for the Afranaph project, he is also working from a minimalist perspective on some fundamental architectural properties of the theory of syntax.

For more information about Ken Safir, please see his website.

Oluseye Adesola received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2005 and is an assistant professor at the Yale University. He designed the original website for the Afranaph projects and continues to provide oversight, outreach and support for Afranaph, and is also our consultant for Yoruba. His research interests include Yoruba Studies, Comparative Syntax, African Culture and Literature, African Linguistics, Syntactic Theory, Anaphora, Wh-movement Constructions and Focus Constructions.

For more information about Oluseye Adesola, please see his website.

Carlo Linares-Scarcerieau is a graduate student in the department of Linguistics at Rutgers University. From 2008 to 2010, he was in charge of data entry management, communication with consultants and case workers, and had taken over the management of several cases and is developing new projects and features for the site. He continues to be involved with data entry management. He is currently developing and translating project materials in French. His research interests include comparative syntax, case/agreement systems, A-movement, and phrase structure theory.

For more information about Carlo Linares-Scarcerieau, please contact him via This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Ruth Kramer received her Ph.D. in Linguistics From the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2009, and is an assistant professor at the department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, as well as an Adjunct Researcher at the Center for the Advanced Study of Language, University of Maryland. Her research interests are in theoretical syntax and morphology, particularly agreement, definite marking, and number and gender within nominal phrases.

For more information about Ruth Kramer, please see her website.

Naga Selvanathan is a graduate student in the department of Linguistics at Rutgers University. He took over in Fall 2012 and is the current graduate assistant. He is in charge of data entry management, the management of several cases and is overseeing new and current features for the website. His research interests include syntax and the syntax-semantics interface.

The online database that Afranaph uses is a customized version of a family of databases designed by Alexis Dimitriadis. Alexis worked closely with the Afranaph staff to adapt his design to our needs, bringing both his technological and linguistic skills to bear, a combination that has been indispensable for the success of our project.

Alexis Dimitriadis obtained his M.A. degree in Mathematics from Portland State University, and the Ph.D. degree in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently a senior research associate at the Utrecht institute of Linguistics OTS. He has participated in several technology-related projects, including the Berlin-Utrecht Reciprocals Survey, for which the software behind the Afranaph database was developed, and the Typological Database System. His primary research interests include the semantics and typology of reciprocals, anaphoric and pronominal reference, Greek linguistics, and Bantu linguistics.

For more information about Alexis Dimitriadis, please contact him via email.

Our new website was designed by John Amodeo, who formerly served Rutgers University as both Associate Director of Information Technology (SAS/NB) from 2001-2006 and Manager of Computer Services from 1998-2001.  John currently works as an IT consultant specializing in internet marketing, website design, and social networking services for various commercial, government, and political entities.

For more information about John Amodeo, please please contact him via This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Spring, 2013 - Dr. Bassene completed his Ph.D. entitled Morphophonology of Joola Eegimaa  at the University of Minnesota in the spring of 2012. He is primarily a phonologist but he is also interested in morphosyntax, conversational analysis, endangered languages and more particularly, Bak languages, including Joola Eegimaa, for which he will be a consultant for Afranaph.