I am a phonetician and sociolinguist working on how regional dialects of American English are changing and what changes in both perception and production can tell us about theories of sound change more generally and, especially, about theories of phonologization. In particular, I have worked on the origins of pre-voiceless diphthong raising ("American raising") in several US cities, including New Orleans and Columbus (OH), and of /aw/ retraction in Raleigh, a city where the Southern Vowel Shift is receding. My research program focuses on how phonetic and social factors in tandem come to affect the uptake and diachronic development of different allophonic patterns, especially those involving American English diphthongs.