Rachel Wagle is a second year PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Prior to pursuing her PhD at Iowa, Rachel earned her BA in Spanish Education with a minor in Latin American Studies from Augustana College in 2019. Following this, she taught high school Spanish for four years. In 2025, she completed her MA in Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Iowa. In addition to her graduate studies, Rachel is a Teaching Assistant at Iowa; she has taught Elementary Spanish 1, Elementary Spanish 2, and Spanish Language Skills: Writing. Teaching is one of Rachel’s passions, and as a result, has influenced her research interests. She is especially interested in the second language acquisition of syntax, with her current research focusing on how learners of Spanish acquire object clitics and their distribution.