Rate My Professor Brynn Quick

Brynn Quick is an Academic Casual and Professional Casual in the Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences at Macquarie University. An American-Australian linguist, she holds a Master of Applied Linguistics and a Master of Research, both from Macquarie University. She is currently a Doctor of Philosophy candidate in the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences, investigating how language barriers are bridged between patients and staff in Australian healthcare contexts. Her research focuses on the assessment of patients' English language proficiency and practices for providing language services in hospitals to improve care quality for limited English proficient patients.

Quick's academic interests include sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, sociophonetics, and historical linguistics, particularly the history of English. Key publications include the peer-reviewed article 'The (un)imagined work of determining patients' English language proficiency' (2025, co-authored with Ingrid Piller and Loy Lising) and 'Hospital practices for determining patient language proficiency: a systematic review' (2026, co-authored with Ingrid Piller). She has also contributed numerous podcast episodes registered as research outputs, such as 'Multilingual practices and monolingual mindsets' (2025), 'Why teachers turn to AI' (2025, with Sue Ollerhead), 'Migration is about every human challenge' (2025), 'Researching language and digital communication' (2025), 'Creaky voice in Australian English' (2024), and 'Language rights in a changing China' (2025). Quick is co-producer and frequent host of the Language on the Move Podcast, produced and edited with Ingrid Piller to feature in-depth conversations with key thinkers on linguistic diversity in social life. In 2023, she won the Macquarie University Department of Linguistics 3-Minute Thesis competition for her presentation 'Curing confusion.' She delivered the LiDS Lunch Lecture at the University of Hamburg in April 2025. Her work impacts applied linguistics by highlighting language issues in healthcare and education.