Dr. Isabel O Keeffe

Biography

Isabel O'Keeffe is a professional casual academic and Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow at Macquarie University, serving as Lab Coordinator at the Child Language Lab in the Department of Linguistics. Under the guidance of Distinguished Professor Katherine Demuth, Dr. Titia Benders, and Dr. Nan Xu Rattanasone, she focuses on the process of child language acquisition, providing research support for the lab and recruiting participants for various research opportunities. Isabel holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Melbourne, where her thesis explored public dance-song traditions within Indigenous communities of western Arnhem Land, reflecting on the linguistic diversity and multilingualism of the region. In addition to her role at Macquarie, she is a Research Associate at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (University of Sydney), collaborating on a project that documents the endangered Indigenous language Kunbarlang, funded by the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (SOAS, London). Her research interests include the relationships between language, song, and emotions, and she works closely with communities to support the maintenance of languages and performance traditions.

Research Interests