Four undergraduate students participated in the Summer Dialect Research Project (SDRP) at UMass in June hosted by the Center for the Study of African American Language (CSAAL). The Center, directed by Lisa Green, fosters and integrates research on language in African American speech communities and applications of that research in different realms. Three students, Christian Muxica, Alexander Santos, and Emily Smith, are enrolled at UMass and majoring in linguistics. Janiya Gilbert is a sophomore at North Carolina A&T University in the animal science program and has interests in language-related and social justice fields. The participants gained research experiences in areas in the study of African American English (AAE), a linguistic variety spoken by some African Americans. They worked on their skills in linguistics while also building broader analytical, argumentation, and collaboration skills. During the three-week program, participants attended lecture/discussion sessions with UMass faculty, researchers, and graduate students, who covered topics in syntax, phonology, acquisition, psycholinguistics, and natural language processing. A more complete description can be found here