About Me

Hi! My name is Suet-Ying Lam. I am currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Before that, I got my BA in Linguistics and Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). At HKU, I worked with Dr. Heeju Hwang at HKU Language Processing Lab.

The central question of my research is to understand how language processing systems map conceptual information to linguistic forms in the human mind. To pursue this question, I investigate (i) how speakers choose between multiple linguistic forms across phenomena and languages, (ii) how those principles vary across production and interpretation, and (iii) vary across humans and large language models.

About the photo: me with lesser violetear, a type of hummingbird, in San Gerado de Dota, Costa Rica.

About how to pronounce my name: it can be roughly transcribed as [syʔ jɪŋ], or in Mandarin [ɕyə jiŋ] 雪莹. If you still find it difficult, [jɪŋ] or [jiŋ] is also fine.

Download my CV (Last updated: 2026/08).