Cooper Bedin
ph.d. student
ucsb department of linguistics
💬 [ˈkupɚ bɛˈdin] KOO-per beh-DEEN 🏳️⚧️ (they/them) 📧 cbedin (at) ucsb (dot) edu 🦋 bluesky 💁♀️ drag insta 🔍 researchgate 📂 cv
Curriculum Vitae - Cooper Bedin
Education
| Spring 2025–Present | Ph.D. in Linguistics (in progress) | UC Santa Barbara |
| Fall 2022–Winter 2025 | M.A. in Linguistics | UC Santa Barbara |
| Fall 2018–Summer 2022 |
B.A. in Linguistics B.A. in Computer Science Honors in Linguistics Phi Beta Kappa |
UC Berkeley |
Other education experience
| July 2025 | Linguistic Institute |
Linguistic Society of America University of Oregon |
| June 2024 | Lavender Languages Institute (LLI) | California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) |
| June 2023–July 2023 | Linguistic Institute |
Linguistic Society of America University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
Fellowships
| 2023–2026 | Graduate Research Fellowship | National Science Foundation |
| 2022–2027 | Regents Fellowship in Linguistics | UC Santa Barbara |
Awards and honors
| February 2025 | Graduate Collaborative Award Marat Zheng, Cooper Bedin, Montreal Benesch, Ryan Ka Yau Lai, Munira Kairat, and Nurgul Isik |
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center UC Santa Barbara |
| May 2022 | Department Service Award |
Department of Linguistics UC Berkeley |
| May 2022 | Outstanding GSI Award |
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science UC Berkeley |
| May 2022 | Linguistics Honors Program |
Department of Linguistics UC Berkeley |
| May 2022 | Phi Beta Kappa | Phi Beta Kappa |
| May 2022 | Linguistics Enrichment Experience Program (LEEP) |
Department of Linguistics UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2021 | Dean's Honors List: High Distinction in General Scholarship |
College of Letters and Sciences UC Berkeley |
Competitions
| March 2024 |
Runner-up - Grad Slam, Humanities & Fine Arts Division Presentation title: "Perception and Queer Speech: Beyond the 'Gay Accent'" [vimeo.com/924279645] (password: GradSlam2024) |
Graduate Division UC Santa Barbara |
| January 2023 |
Second place - QWER Hacks, Track 2: Housing Access Cooper Bedin, Cedar Brown, Richard Khillah, and Gabriel Sanchez |
Major League Hacking (MLH) UC Los Angeles |
Research, presentations, and publications
M.A. thesis
| March 2025 |
"A tale of two pronouns": Race, place, gender, and the indexical tangle of you guys and y'all Committee chair: Lal Zimman, Ph.D. Committee members: Mary Bucholtz, Ph.D.; Simon Todd, Ph.D. |
Department of Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
B.A. honors thesis
| May 2022 |
A computational approach to acoustic analysis of queer speech Advisor: Keith Johnson, Ph.D. Second Reader: Mel Chen, Ph.D. [lx.berkeley.edu/publications/computational-approach-acoustic-analysis-queer-speech] |
Department of Linguistics UC Berkeley |
Articles and book chapters
| Forthcoming |
"Carrie's Fables" or: How I learned to stop misgendering and love trans people Cooper Bedin and Montreal Benesch |
Sex Change & the City Girl Dad Press Edited by Niko Stratis and Tuck Woodstock |
Proceedings publications
| Forthcoming |
Telling a (racio)gender: Morphosyntactic variation and identity attribution in transgender English/Spanish speakers' Pear Stories Dozandri Mendoza, Lal Zimman, Cooper Bedin, Nicky Macias, Kris Ali, and Cedar Brown |
Penn Working Papers in Linguistics Selected papers from NWAV 52 |
| 2024 |
Current norms and best practices for collecting and representing sex/gender in linguistics: Towards ethical and inclusive methodologies Cooper Bedin, Montreal Benesch, Marina Zhukova, and Lal Zimman [doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v9i1.5668] |
Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (PLSA) |
| 2023 |
Towards a model of the listener in perception of queer speech [internationalphoneticassociation.org/icphs-proceedings/ICPhS2023/full_papers/399.pdf] |
Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS) |
Web publications
| 2024 |
You guys, y'all, and queer and trans language [lsadc.org/af_membercommittee.asp?committeeid=14&sp=40] |
Committee on LGBTQ+[Z] Issues in Linguistics (COZIL) Linguistic Society of America (LSA) |
| 2022 |
Gendered lexicon of Mandarin Chinese Chelsea Tang, Xuedi Yang, Irene Yi, and Cooper Bedin (PI: Ben Papadopoulos, M.A.) [genderinlanguage.com/mandarin] |
Gender in Language Project Berkeley, CA |
| 2022 |
Inclusive partial grammar of English Ben Papadopoulos, Cooper Bedin, Sebastian Clendenning-Jiménez, Julie Duran, and Zaphiel Kiriko Miller (PI: Ben Papadopoulos, M.A.) [genderinlanguage.com/english] |
Gender in Language Project Berkeley, CA |
Invited presentations
| March 2025 | Power, politics, and nonbinary identity in trans talk |
Language Interaction and Social Organiation (LISO) UC Santa Barbara |
| March 2025 | Towards participant-driven analyses in sociolinguistic studies of gender and sexuality |
Phonetics, Phonology and Psycholinguistics Forum (Phorum) UC Berkeley |
| February 2024 | Operationalizing gender: Towards participant-driven quantitative methods in linguistics |
Department of Linguistics Graduate Student Open House Colloquium UC Santa Barbara |
| May 2022 | Commencement speaker |
Department of Linguistics Commencement Ceremony UC Berkeley |
Conference presentations
| July 2025 |
Expansive, intersectional... and quantitative?? Innovating critical approaches to gendered sociophonetic variation Cooper Bedin, Montreal Benesch, Lal Zimman, and Marina Zhukova |
International Gender and Language Association (IGALA) 13 Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación & Universidad de la República |
| November 2024 |
Telling a (racio)gender: Morphosyntactic variation and identity attribution in transgender English/Spanish speakers' 'Pear Stories' Dozandri Mendoza, Lal Zimman, Cooper Bedin, Nicky Macias, Kris Ali, and Cedar Brown |
New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 52 Florida International University and the University of Miami |
| October 2024 |
"Questions that people are afraid to ask out loud": Fear vs. Self-Determination in Anglophone and Russophone Pronoun Discourses Marina Zhukova and Cooper Bedin |
"What are your pronouns? And why does it matter?" Université Paul-Valéry |
| August 2024 | "On forms I always click non-binary": Competing ideologies of (il)legibility in 'non-binary' self-identification |
Lavender Languages and Linguistics (LavLang) 30 University of Brighton |
| June 2024 | Variation and perception of queer speech: A hierarchical clustering approach |
Variation and Language Processing (VALP) 6 Universidade de Vigo |
| May 2024 | "In terms of gender, how do you describe yourself?": Counterideology and interaction in trans-centric conversation |
[Cancelled] The 27th Center for Language, Interaction and Culture-Graduate Student Association (CLIC-GSA) Conference UC Los Angeles |
| January 2024 |
Current norms and best practices for collecting and representing sex/gender in linguistics: Towards ethical and inclusive methodologies Cooper Bedin, Montreal Benesch, Marina Zhukova, and Lal Zimman |
2024 Linguistic Society of American (LSA) Annual Meeting Sheraton New York Times Square |
| November 2023 |
Beyond third-person: Epistemologies of race, place, gender, and power in you guys and y'all Panel: Trans linguistic logics: Pronominal and grammatical epistemologies |
2023 American Anthopological Association/Canadian Anthropology Society (AAA/CASCA) Annual Meeting Metro Toronto Convention Centre |
| October 2023 |
Operationalizing gender: Implications of participant-driven measurements Montreal Benesch and Cooper Bedin |
New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 51 Queens College and CUNY |
| October 2023 |
Operationalizing gender: Methods for statistical modeling of open-response demographic data Cooper Bedin, Lal Zimman, and Marina Zhukova |
New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 51 Queens College and CUNY |
| April 2023 | What do you guys and y'all tell us about inclusive language? Race, place, gender, and linguistic ownership in metalinguistic debates |
The 26th Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Social Organization (LISO) UC Santa Barbara |
| March 2023 | "Battle of the Pronouns" revisited: Metalinguistic discourses on you guys and y'all |
Lavender Languages and Linguistics (LavLang) 29 Boise State University |
| June 2022 |
Gender in "genderless" languages Cooper Bedin, Carmela Blazado, Sol Cintron, and Julie Ha (PI: Ben Papadopoulos, M.A.) Panel: Introducing the Gender in Language Project |
Lavender Languages and Linguistics (LavLang) 28 University of Catania |
| April 2022 |
(A computational approach to) acoustic analaysis of queer speech |
The Sixth Annual Berkeley Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium UC Berkeley |
Poster sessions
| April 2025 |
"Representing everyone else outside these two boring genders": The role of popular media in trans language activism Cooper Bedin and Montreal Benesch |
LingComm25: Communicating Linguistics to Broader Audiences Online |
| August 2023 | Towards a model of the listener in perception of queer speech |
20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS) Prague Congress Center |
Workshops
| May 2025 |
(Trans) Pear Film Live!: Queering narrative analysis and linguistic performance ethnography Making/doing session Lal Zimman, Crystal Gong, Montreal Benesch, Kris Ali, Cooper Bedin, Cedar Brown, Nicky Macias, and Dozandri Mendoza |
2025 Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA) Biennial Conference University of Chicago |
| January 2024 |
Current best practices for asking about sex/gender in linguistic research Organized session Cooper Bedin, Montreal Benesch, Kirby Conrod, Marina Zhukova, and Lal Zimman [bit.ly/LSA2024GenderQuestionMaterials] |
2024 Linguistic Society of American (LSA) Annual Meeting Sheraton New York Times Square |
| April 2021 | Gender-Inclusive Language for Teaching |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
| March 2021 | LaTeX for Linguistics |
Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) UC Berkeley |
| November 2020 | LaTeX for Linguistics |
Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) UC Berkeley |
| March 2020 | LaTeX for Linguistics |
Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) UC Berkeley |
| November 2019 | LaTeX for Linguistics |
Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) UC Berkeley |
Research supervision
| Winter 2025–Present [Qtrs.] |
Gender Reveal podcast transcription PI: Cooper Bedin, M.A. Faculty supervisor: Lal Zimman, Ph.D. |
Department of Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
Other research experience
| Winter 2023–Present [Qtrs.] |
Gender and Race Attribution Project (GxRAP) PI: Lal Zimman, Ph.D. |
Department of Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| Fall 2023–Winter 2024 [Qtrs.] |
Copy Editing (LaTeX) Journal: Phonological Data and Analysis PI: Matt Gordon, Ph.D. |
Department of Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| Spring 2021–Spring 2022 [Sems.] |
Gender in Language Project PI: Ben Papadopoulos, M.A. Faculty supervisor: Justin Davidson, Ph.D. [genderinlanguage.com] |
Linguistics Research Apprenticeship Program (LRAP) UC Berkeley |
| Summer 2020–Spring 2021 [Sems.] |
Copy Editing (LaTeX) Journal: Language Documentation & Conservation PIs: Peter Jenks, Ph.D.; Lev Michael, Ph.D. |
Department of Linguistics UC Berkeley |
| Spring 2019 [Sem.] |
Electromagnetic Articulography Data Processing PI: Karee Garvin, M.A. |
Linguistics Research Apprenticeship Program (LRAP) UC Berkeley |
Teaching
Instructor
| Summer 2025 | Instructor |
Linguistics 180: Language, Race, and Ethnicity UC Santa Barbara |
| Summer 2022 | Instructor |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
Teaching assistant
| Spring 2025 [Qtr.] | Teaching Assistant |
Linguistics 111: Advanced Computational Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| Winter 2025 [Qtr.] | Teaching Assistant |
Linguistics 145: Articulatory Phonetics UC Santa Barbara |
| Summer 2024 | Teaching Assistant |
Linguistics 15: Language in Life UC Santa Barbara |
| Fall 2023 [Qtr.] | Teaching Assistant |
Linguistics 132: Language, Gender, and Sexuality UC Santa Barbara |
| March 2023 | Teaching Assistant |
Linguistics 110: Foundations of Computational Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| Spring 2022 [Sem.] |
Head Teaching Assistant Head of Student Support; Head of CS Scholars |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2021 [Sem.] |
Teaching Assistant Student Support; CS Scholars |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
| Summer 2021 |
Head Teaching Assistant Head of Content; Head of Student Support |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
| Spring 2021 [Sem.] |
Teaching Assistant CS Scholars |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
| Summer 2020 |
Teaching Assistant Content |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
Reader, tutor, or lab assistant
| February 2025 | Reader |
Linguistics 110: Foundations of Computational Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| February 2023 | Reader |
Linguistics 110: Foundations of Computational Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| Fall 2020 [Sem.] |
Course Tutor Parties |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
| Spring 2020 [Sem.] | Course Tutor |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2019 [Sem.] | Academic Intern |
Computer Science 61A: The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs UC Berkeley |
Guest lectures
| November 2024 | Quantification and Social Justice in Technology |
Interdisciplinary 84BY: Trans Linguistics Honors Seminar UC Santa Barbara Instructor: Lal Zimman, Ph.D. |
| September 2023 | New approaches for operationalizing gender in sociolinguistic research |
Linguistics S303: Sociolinguistics University of Waikato Instructor: Sidney Wong, M.S. |
Other teaching experience
| Spring 2022 [Sem.] |
Associate Mentor, Electrical Engineering 16A LGBTQ+ Affinity Section |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2021 [Sem.] |
Associate Mentor, Computer Science 61A LGBTQ+ Affinity Section |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2020 [Sem.] | Senior Mentor, Electrical Engineering 16A |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
| Spring 2020 [Sem.] | Senior Mentor, Electrical Engineering 16A |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2019 [Sem.] | Junior Mentor, Electrical Engineering 16A |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
Service, affiliations, and skills
Academic, artistic, and community service
| September 2024–Present | Coordinator |
Grad Drag Club Graduate Student Association (GSA) UC Santa Barbara |
| September 2024–Present | Linguistics Department Representative | UAW Local 4811 |
| September 2024–Present | Officer |
Language Interaction and Social Organization Graduate Student Organization (LISO-GSO) Graduate Student Association (GSA) UC Santa Barbara |
| September 2024–Present | Treasurer |
Queer and Trans Graduate Student Association (QTGSU) UC Santa Barbara |
| May 2025 | Organizer |
The 27th Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Social Organization (LISO) UC Santa Barbara |
| January–March 2025 | Mentor - Womxn in STEM mentorship program |
Womxn in Science and Engineering (WiSE) UC Santa Barbara |
| February 2025 | Judge - Grad Slam |
Graduate Division UC Santa Barbara |
| February 2025 | Reviewer |
Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL) 27 UC Santa Barbara |
| November 2024 | Panelist - "Applying to grad school" information session |
Department of Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| August 2024 | Zwicky Award Committee Member | Linguistic Society of America (LSA) |
| September 2023–June 2024 | Peer Mentor |
Department of Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| June 2023–June 2024 | Graduate Student Representative |
Department of Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| May 2024 | Session Chair |
Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL) 26 UC Santa Barbara |
| March 2023–March 2024 | Colloquium Coordinator |
Department of Linguistics UC Santa Barbara |
| January 2024 | Reviewer |
Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL) 26 UC Santa Barbara |
| May 2023 | Session Moderator |
The 26th Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Social Organization (LISO) UC Santa Barbara |
| April 2023 | Session Chair |
Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL) 25 UC Santa Barbara |
| Fall 2022 [Qtr.] | Lab Manager |
Trans Research in Linguistics Lab (TRILL) UC Santa Barbara |
| April 2022 | Organizer |
The Sixth Annual Berkeley Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium UC Berkeley |
| Spring 2022 [Sem.] | President |
Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2020–Spring 2022 [Sems.] | External Affairs Director |
BareStage Productions UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2019–Spring 2022 [Sems.] | Officer |
Society of Linguistics Undergraduate Students (SLUgS) UC Berkeley |
| Spring 2022 [Sem.] | President |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
| Fall 2021 [Sem.] | External Vice President |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
| August 2021 | Orientation Leader |
New Student Services (NSS) UC Berkeley |
| April 2021 | Organizer |
The Fifth Annual Berkeley Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium UC Berkeley |
| Spring 2021 [Sem.] | Socials Chair |
Computer Science Mentors (CSM) UC Berkeley |
| November 2019 | Organizer |
The Fourth Annual Berkeley Undergraduate Linguistics Symposium UC Berkeley |
| August 2019 | Orientation Leader |
New Student Services (NSS) UC Berkeley |
Labs
|
Computational Psycholinguistics of Listening and Speaking (CPLS) Lab UCSB Department of Linguistics PI: Simon Todd, Ph.D. [ucsb-cpls-lab.github.io] |
|
Trans Research in Linguistics Lab (TRILL) UCSB Department of Linguistics PI: Lal Zimman, Ph.D. [trillucsb.org] |
Professional memberships and affiliations
| American Anthropological Association (AAA) |
|
Committee on LGBTQ+ [Z] Issues in Linguistics (COZIL) Linguistic Society of America |
| International Phonetic Association (IPA) |
| Linguistic Society of America (LSA) |
Languages and skills
| Languages |
English (Native) Mandarin (Advanced) |
| Computing |
Linguistics: Praat, LaTeX, ELAN Computational: Python, R, Java, C, JavaScript, HTML, CSS |
