CV
General Information
| Full Name | Muhammad Rehan |
| rehanmuh@g.ucla.edu | |
| Website | https://rehan-muh.github.io |
| Languages | Ancient (Advanced): Ancient Greek, Hittite, Gothic, Latin, Vedic; Intermediate: Middle High German, Old Persian, Avestan, Luwian; Modern (Near-)Native: Hindi/Urdu, Panjabi, English; German (C1) |
Education
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2023- Graduate Student, Program in Indo-European Studies
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) -
2023-2024 M.A. in Indo-European Studies
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) -
2022-2023 Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classics (with Distinction)
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) -
2018-2022 B.A. in Classics (Hons.) and German Studies (Hons.)
Grinnell College
Publications
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In Prep. From Points to Polygons: Modeling Spatial Autocorrelation.
with David Goldstein -
In Prep. Young Infants' Discrimination of Phonetic Contrasts Predicts Their Typological Frequency.
with Megha Sundara -
Submitted Supervised Measurement of Christian Latin.
with Valentina Lunardi and David Goldstein -
2026 E-lorgesailie: An Agent-Based Simulation Model of Acheulean Lithic Raw Material Procurement and Handaxe Deposition Patterns.
with Grant S. McCall. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 33, Article 49. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09788-y -
Forth. Re-evaluating the Word-Medial Operation of the Saussure-Hirt Effect in Greek.
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Ancient Greek Linguistics -
2026 Gk. μοιχός 'adulterer': Re-mixing a Piss-Poor Etymology
Proceedings of the 35th Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Vol. 35, pp. 147-163 -
2023 Mind your Language, Mister! A Case Study in Aristophanic Humor.
Animus, Vol. 3.1 (Winter), pp. 36-51 -
2023 Between Need, Want, Material and Innate Beauty: Tracing Shades of Erōs.
Corvus, Vol. 13 (Spring), pp. 27-35 -
2023 Gendered Language in Aristophanes' Birds.
Persephone, Vol. 8.1 (Spring), pp. 12-29 -
2021 The Estuarine Ecological Knowledge Network: Future Prospects.
with Grant S. McCall, Russell Greaves, Brian Hitchcock, Brian Ostahowski, and Sherman W. Horn III. Marine Technology and Science Journal, 55(3), pp. 122-123
Presentations & Posters
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2026 From points to polygons: Modeling spatial autocorrelation
with David Goldstein. qc-leste: Quantitative Cross-Linguistic Explorations of Space, Time, and Evolution, Jun. 10 -
2026 Modeling the spread of alphabets in ancient Italy using spatiotemporal Hawkes processes.
with Tom Francis. DataX, UCLA, May 19 -
2026 Predicting phonological typology and rates of phonological change.
DataX, UCLA, Apr. 20 -
2026 The phonetic value of Avestan .
American Society for Premodern Asia Annual Meeting, Apr. 27 -
2026 From points to polygons: Modeling spatial autocorrelation
with David Goldstein. Special workshop on "The geography of linguistic evolution", EVOLANG XVI, Apr. 7 -
2026 Lexical stress and syllable weight in Hindi-Urdu pop text-setting.
with Jahnavi Narkar and Dhanya Charan. Linguistics Society of America Annual Meeting 2026, Jan. 9 -
2025 Investigating lexical stress in Hindi-Urdu pop music.
with Jahnavi Narkar and Dhanya Charan. Sixth Joint Meeting of Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, Dec. 5 -
2025 The development of word-final stops in Hittite.
AnatoLinks, University of Oxford, Dec. 4 -
2025 Synchronic phonetic variation drives diachronic sound change: Further evidence from pre-nasal raising in Young Avestan.
7th Edinburgh Symposium on Historical Phonology, Dec. 2 -
2025 Converging computational evidence against an East-Germanic clade.
with Sean Liu and Marc Canby. WeCIEC 36, Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Oct. 28 -
2025 Issues of lexical cognacy encoding in IE-CoR.
with Tom Francis, Klaus Kim, and Laura McLean. 27th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Aug. 18 -
2025 Population size has a weak effect on phoneme inventory size.
Poster presented at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute, University of Oregon, Jul. 10 -
2025 Re-evaluating the word-medial operation of the Saussure-Hirt effect in Greek.
11th International Colloquium on Ancient Greek Linguistics, Jun. 26 -
2025 Word-final voicing in Hittite?
Southern California Annual Meeting on Phonology 2025, Apr. 12 -
2024 Re-mixing a piss-poor etymology: On Gk. μοιχός and OE (ge)māh.
WeCIEC 35, Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Oct. 25 -
2024 Towards an integrative approach to the investigation of linguistic phylogenies.
5th Munich-UCLA Historical Linguistics Colloquium, Jun. 28 -
2024 FSAs, FSTs and sequence alignment in phylogenetic studies: The case of Tocharian B.
UCLA Program in Indo-European Studies Graduate Seminar, May 29
Invited Talks
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2026 Uncovering the sounds of ancient languages using phonological typology and experimental phonetics.
LING 114, How to Learn a Foreign Language, University of Arizona, Mar. 22 -
2026 A meta-analysis of studies on young infants' perception of phonetic contrasts.
Department of Linguistics, USC Dornsife, T.B.D. -
2025 brms tutorial.
LING 217, Experimental Phonology, UCLA, Nov. 18 -
2025 Origins and nature of food vocabulary in English.
Classics 185, Origins and Nature of English Vocabulary, UCLA, Jul. 8 -
2025 Historical Linguistics.
LING-20, Introduction to the Study of Language, UCLA (with Aidan Holmgren and Nick Guymon) -
2024 Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend: Sanskrit loanwords into English.
Classics 185, Origins and Nature of English Vocabulary, UCLA, Jul. 11
Teaching Experience
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2026 Teaching Assistant
CLS 52, Greco-Roman Technologies: Materials, Monuments, Machines, UCLA. Faculty Supervisor: Prof Sarah Beckmann -
2025 Teaching Assistant
CLS 51, Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece, UCLA. Instructor of Record: Prof. John Papadopoulos -
2025 Instructor of Record
LING-110, Introduction to Historical Linguistics, UCLA. Faculty Supervisor: Prof. Stefan Keine -
2025 Undergraduate Supervisor
LING-197, Infants' Discrimination of Phonetic Contrasts, UCLA. Faculty Supervisor: Prof. Megha Sundara -
2025 Teaching Assistant
LING-20, Introduction to Linguistic Analysis, UCLA. Instructor of Record: Prof. Ben Eischens and Prof. Anoop Mahajan -
Fall 2024 Teaching Assistant
LING-110, Introduction to Historical Linguistics, UCLA. Instructor of Record: Prof. David Goldstein -
Sum. 2024 Teaching Assistant
LING-1, Introduction to the Study of Language, UCLA. Instructor of Record: Corrina Fuller -
Fall 2021 Instructor
ALS-102, Urdu, Grinnell College
Research Experience
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2025 Research Assistant
Supervisor: Prof. Brent Vine, UCLA -
2023- Research Assistant
Supervisor: Prof. David Goldstein, UCLA -
2022 Independent research: Nibelungenlied and Middle High German verse
Mentor: Prof. Daniel Reynolds, Grinnell College -
2021 Independent research: Jewish life in Pakistan
Mentor: Prof. Viktoria Pötzl, Grinnell College -
2021 Independent research: Peter Schneider's Der Mauerspringer and the search for a German identity
Mentor: Prof. Vance Byrd, University of Pennsylvania -
2020 Research Assistant: Modeling pre-historic foraging patterns along the coast of New Orleans
Supervisor: Prof. Grant McCall, Tulane University
Scholarships & Awards
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2025 - Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Award
-
2024 & 2025 - Morvarid Guiv Graduate Fellowship in Zoroastrian Studies
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2024 - UCLA/Keck Humanistic Inquiry Research Award (shared with Tom Francis, Klaus Kim, and Laura McLean)
- Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Award
-
2023-24 - Institute for the Study of Global Antiquity Fellowship
-
2023 - Society for Classical Studies Lionel Pearson Fellowship
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2022-23 - Joan Palevsky Chair Post-Baccalaureate Scholarship in Classics
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2022 - CAMWS Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Classical Studies
- Gus and Elfie Kalfass Prize for Excellence in German Studies
-
2021 - Gerald W. LaLonde Fellowship in Classical Studies
- UC Berkeley Intensive Greek Workshop Fellowship
-
2019 - Institute for Global Engagement Summer Language Study Scholarship
External Coursework and Certifications
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2025 LSA Summer Institute, University of Oregon
Linguistic Typology in Evolutionary Perspective, Statistical Measures in Corpus Linguistics, Foundations of Predictive Modeling with R, Variationist Sociolinguistics, Reconstructing Syntax, Adaptive Speech Perception and Comprehension, Language Phylogenies -
2024 CreteLing 2024
Exceptionality, Phonological Grammar and Opacity, Historical Linguistics -
2021 Leiden Summer School in Languages and Linguistics
Old English -
2021 UC Berkeley
The Ancient Greek Workshop -
2020 Humboldt Universität
Deutsch Erleben Workshop -
2019 Universität Leipzig
German Language Program
Technical Skills & Programming Languages
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Programming & Software
- Microsoft Office Suite, NetLogo, RevBayes, BEAST2, Python, LaTeX, Julia, Stan, R
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R Packages
- sp, sf, brms, lme4, mgcv, rstan, R-INLA, geostan, inlabru, cmdstanR, and many others
Service
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2025- Abstract reviewer, Southern California Undergraduate Linguistics Conference
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2024- Graduate Seminar Organizer (with Aidan Holmgren), PIES, UCLA
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2023- Mentor, Asian and Asian American Classical Caucus
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2023- Organizer, UCLA Indo-European Conference
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2023-24 Graduate Student Association Representative, UCLA Undergraduate Council
-
2021-22 Co-Chair, Grinnell College Classical Studies Student Education Policy Committee
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2020-22 Co-Chair, Grinnell College German Studies Student Education Policy Committee
Professional Organizations
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2025- American Society for the Study of Premodern Asia
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2025- Linguistic Society of America
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2025- Acoustical Society of America
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2023- Indogermanische Gesellschaft
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2022- Society for Classical Studies
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2022- Classical Association of the Middle West and South
References
- Prof. David Goldstein — Department of Linguistics/Classics/Program in Indo-European Studies, UCLA (dgoldstein@humnet.ucla.edu)
- Prof. Stephanie Jamison — Department of Asian Languages & Cultures/Program in Indo-European Studies, UCLA (jamison@humnet.ucla.edu)
- Prof. Angelo Mercado — Department of Classics/Linguistics, Grinnell College (mercadoa@grinnell.edu)
- Prof. Brent Vine — Department of Classics/Program in Indo-European Studies (Emeritus), UCLA (vine@humnet.ucla.edu)
- Prof. Anthony Yates — Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures/Program in Indo-European Studies, UCLA (adyates@ucla.edu)