My main goal is to understand the relation between human cognition and linguistic diversity, from the beginning of the Holocene until today and further into the future. I use data from hundred to thousands of languages in order to distinguish, in the structure of languages, the consequences of contingent historical and demographic processes from consistent human biases towards or against learning, using or transmitting specific linguistic traits. In my work I combine data science with cognitive sciences, diversity linguistics, evolutionary anthropology, computational social sciences, natural language processing and cultural evolution. I regularly wrangle with small, sparse, incomplete, imbalanced, noisy and non-independent data (or s2i2n2 for short).

My published research covers topics ranging from the emergence of new languages, pervasive form-meaning associations, the adaptability of speech sound systems, patterns of information packing , and the prehistory of worldwide linguistic diversity.

More recently, I have become interested in the application of insights from linguistic diversity into concrete issues involving (language-based) medicine, education and technology.