Welcome! My name is Gyula Zsombok.

I am an Assistant Professor in French and Francophone Studies at Middlebury College. In my research, I study language ideologies concerning the lexicon: foreign words, official recommendations, inclusive language. I implement computational and statistical applications (i.e. tidy text methods, topic models, generalized additive models, etc.) on newspaper and social media texts. As a professor, I prepare my students to efficiently communicate in French, including conversational and writing strategies in beginner to M.A. level courses. I have additionally taught data science in English.

I am from Hungary and my name can often cause headaches to non-native speakers. The closest pronunciation would be something like /IPA: djulɑ ʒombok/. But, I simply go with “Joe” in a coffee shop.

I am constantly learning languages: my first language (other than my native language) was German, and the most recent one was tidy in R. I am always eager to acquire new skills and I am never afraid of doing so on my own! That is how I learned English, or to use Photoshop and other editors.

In my free time, I enjoy hiking in nearby parks and national forests, as well as exploring cities around the world. So far, I have visited magnificent places in Europe and in North America. Perhaps, traveling in the South West United States (including Death Valley and the Grand Canyon) has had the most significant impact on me!

For more details about my professional background, please see my curriculum vitae.

If you are interested in my research, see my previous presentations or my publications.

If you would like to get in touch with me through social media, please check out my LinkedIn profile, my Twitter, or my GitHub page.