Hi, I’m Owen. I’m a documentary and historical linguist, specializing in languages of Eastern Indonesia, especially Timor and southern Maluku. I am the managing editor of Oceanic Linguistics and on the Advisory Board of the Language & Culture Unit (UBB) in Kupang.
I also do linguistic consultancy, especially in the areas of data processing, orthography development, and linguistic cartography. You can read more about my services here and find maps here.
Employment
10/2025 - | Visiting researcher, University of Canterbury (New Zealand)
08/2024 – 10/2025 | Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Canterbury (New Zealand)
07/2023 – 04/2024 | Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Cologne (Germany)
03/2023 – 06/2023 | Specialist of Linguistics, University of Tartu, Tartu (Estonia)
07/2021 – 07/2022 | Lecturer, Leiden University, Leiden (Netherlands)
05/2021 – 08/2022 | Linguist, ARDS Aboriginal Corporation, Darwin (Australia)
03/2018 – 12/2019 | Researcher, Leiden University, Leiden (Netherlands)
07/2017 – 12/2017| Endeavour Australia Research Fellow, Language & Culture Unit (UBB), Kupang (Indonesia)
03/2017 – 06/2017 | Guest Researcher, Leiden University , Leiden (Netherlands)
Education
2017 | PhD | The Australian National University
Thesis: Metathesis and Unmetathesis: Parallelism and Complementarity in Amarasi, Timor [PDF]
2012 | Bachelor of Arts (Honours) | Australian National University
Sub-thesis: Grammatical Functions in Tolaki [PDF]
