Anissa is a PhD candidate in Linguistics, specializing in the relationship between grammatical structure and meaning in human language. Her dissertation documents and analyzes African American English (AAE), particularly the phenomenon of Negative Concord, colloquially known as 'multiple negation.' Although the use of Negative Concord by AAE speakers is stigmatized within the U.S. context, it is a widespread feature across many languages. Using AAE as a case study, Anissa’s research seeks to uncover the principles that govern sentence interpretation, particularly in languages or dialects that utilize multiple negation, with the broader goal of understanding the fundamental processes involved in the human construction of meaning. Through fieldwork and the analytical tools of formal linguistic theory, her work illuminates the linguistic complexity of under-studied dialects, highlighting their crucial role in advancing our understanding of the human capacity for language.