The department hosted the 5th American International Morphology Meeting (AIMM5) as a virtual conference, August 26-29, 2021, organized by faculty member Andrea Sims and graduate students Sara Court, Martha Booker Johnson, David King, and Connor Rouillier. In addition to 60 oral and poster presentations, the conference featured keynote talks by Ryan Lepic (Gallaudet University), Laura Kalin (Princeton University), Gabriela Caballero (UC San Diego), and Dunstan Brown (University of York), each reflecting a different take on the conference theme of Morphological Theory and Typology. Thanks to all of the presenters for four days of fascinating talks!
Even though the conference had to go virtual due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, and many participants had to attend at times that were far from ‘business hours’ locally (from California to Japan – 17 time zones apart!), the conference was full of lively discussion that spilled over into socializing time held in gather.town. Gather.town was a new experience for many, but attendees got into the spirit of using their avatars to “walk” around the custom-designed space, “sit” at the picnic benches and chairs, and “huddle” in small groups to chat. (Poster sessions were also held in gather.town – a surprisingly good imitation of the experience of wandering a poster hall in person!). In the end, attendance exceeded expectations, with the virtual format allowing more people to participate than would have been able to attend an in-person event.
The organizers are grateful to the ADA Coordinator’s Office at OSU for providing live captioning and American Sign Language interpretation throughout the conference, allowing for full participation by all attendees.
