Rose Fisher
Rose Fisher is an assistant professor of German and Linguistics at Michigan State University and completed her PhD at Penn State University in May, 2025. The Pennsylvania Dutch Dialects Project arose out of her desire to document and compare Pennsylvania Dutch dialects on a large scale. Rose was born into an Amish family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and her parents decided to leave the Amish church when she was 11 years old which allowed her to complete her education (high school > bachelors degree > PhD) on a typical timeline. As a teaching and research professor at Michigan State, Rose teaches German and Linguistics but also continues the work she began as a graduate student at Penn State doing research on the Pennsylvania Dutch language.
Angelina Burkholder
Angelina Burkholder is a writer and editor with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Taylor University. She was born and raised in an Amish community in northern Indiana and works on the Penn Dutch Dialects project as a translator and transcriber, passionate about returning to and preserving her native language.
MJ Kempf
MJ Kempf is an undergrad student majoring in Psychology at Michigan State University. As a native Pennsylvania Dutch speaker, she helps with the transcription and translation process.
Eythana Miller
Eythana grew up in an unconventional, transitioning Amish community in Libby, Montana. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in Political Economy in 2025 and spent the next year conducting interviews in Pennsylvania Dutch for her Heritage in Translation oral history project. She works on transcription and translation, and is interested in Pennsylvania Dutch orthography.
Mercy Troyer
Mercy grew up in a Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking home with Amish roots. She was a primary translator on the Heritage in Translation Oral History project, and would like to continue learning more about the language through her work. She does transcription and translation.
Connor Bechler
Connor Bechler is a graduate student at Michigan State University pursuing a PhD in Linguistics. Interested in computational sociolinguistics and language documentation, his work with the project has involved the development of an automatic speech recognition pipeline to assist with the transcription, analysis, and publication of Pennsylvania Dutch recordings.
Tristan Kuntz
Tristan is an undergraduate student at Michigan State University working on their BA in Linguistics as well as an Anthropology minor. They have an interest in under-documented languages and plans to attend graduate school in the future. They have aided in the transcription process and minor website development.
Mckaylah Shank
McKaylah is an undergraduate student at Michigan State University pursuing a BA in Linguistic, and minors in German and Sales Leadership. As a research assistant, she has contributed to the transcription process.
Nolan Rachocki
Nolan was a Graduate student at Michigan State University pursuing a Master’s in German Studies. As a graduate research assistant, he supported the project’s transcription process as well as creating the website.
Helena Stech
Helena was a doctoral student in German Studies at Michigan State University. As a graduate research assistant, she helped with transcribing and organizing the interview data.