Jasmine Upchurch, a fourth-year student pursuing degrees in psychology and Spanish, hopes to continue finding unique ways to connect her interests in studying language and storytelling. Credit: Kate Kenealy. All Rights Reserved.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Reading has been a constant in Jasmine Upchurch’s life for as long as she can remember.
“I have distinct memories of going to our local library with my mom once every two weeks,” the Collegeville native recalled. “We had this huge red library bag, and she said to put as many books in the bag as I could fit. That’s kind of where my love for reading developed.”
Two-year-old Jasmine Upchurch enjoys reading a library book with her mom. Credit: Provided. All Rights Reserved.
That love for reading also fueled a lifelong love for writing, which has yielded significant results for Upchurch at a relatively young age — the fourth-year Penn State student and Schreyer Scholar already published the first two books in what she envisions being a young adult fantasy trilogy: “To Ruin a Kingdom,” which was released in 2021; and “To Wield a Raging Storm,” which was released last fall.
Upchurch described the trilogy as being “deeply personal” to her. She began writing the first book during the pandemic in 2020 — a challenging time for her and many, she said. The novel drew inspiration from fantasy books she read leading up to the pandemic and incorporated elements that resonated with her into her own world-building.
Jasmine Upchurch with a copy of her first novel, "To Ruin a Kingdom." Credit: Provided. All Rights Reserved.
Her inspiration for writing, Upchurch said, goes as far back as second grade. She remembered her teacher at the time, Mrs. Finlayson, encouraging students during a phonetics exercise to “play around” with writing something. She also credited one of her teachers later, Ms. Colman, with helping her develop her fundamentals in rhetorical analyses and argumentative essays.
“I can’t stress the importance of our teachers enough,” Upchurch said. “Many people have helped me along my journey, but no one has done it quite like my closest instructors.”
Upchurch, who is currently double majoring in Spanish and psychology, credited her Spanish courses in particular for aiding her creative processes as a writer.
“Learning the Spanish language has helped me develop a language for the series that I'm writing,” she said. “It really draws on a lot of traits that you might find in romance languages like Spanish, French and Italian.”
She said her interest in psychology stems from her love of language as well — most notably in terms of psycholinguistics, or the relationship between linguistic behavior and psychological processes.
“You can study how languages work in the brain and how some people learn and use one language or multiple languages,” Upchurch said.
In addition to her coursework and writing her novels, Upchurch is currently an undergraduate research assistant in the Bilingualism and Linguistic Diversity (BiLD) Lab directed by Janet van Hell, distinguished professor of psychology and linguistics who also directs the Center for Language Science.
It was through her involvement with the BiLD Lab that Upchurch learned about the Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) fellowship program — a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded program that allows Penn State students to study language science and conduct language research abroad. As a PIRE Fellow, Upchurch spent part of last summer conducting behavioral and neural research at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, specifically examining how individuals fluent in both Spanish and English process native and nonnative accents.
“It was super rewarding and a really good gauge of one’s capability,” Upchurch said.
Another education abroad opportunity offered by the Penn State Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese — the “Spanish Language and Culture” faculty-led course in Ronda, Spain — gave Upchurch the chance to spend six weeks in the southern Spanish city learning about Spanish culture, oral expression and literature.
The “Spanish Language and Culture” faculty-led course allowed Upchurch and her classmates to immerse themselves in the language and culture of southern Spain. Credit: Provided. All Rights Reserved.
Back in the BiLD Lab, Upchurch is currently conducting research — the basis of her Schreyer Honors thesis — that uses advanced brain-measuring equipment to analyze neural responses to accent perception in a Spanish-speaking cultural context. The study’s design aims to demonstrate the participants’ ability to process accents as well as reveal insights into how bilingual brains adapt to varying linguistic inputs.
Looking ahead, Upchurch said she hopes to combine her interests in language and teaching by eventually becoming a college professor specializing in Spanish and linguistics. She is currently considering graduate Spanish linguistic programs to help her pursue that goal and said she hopes that all roads will someday bring her back to her alma mater.
“I would love to continue researching and teaching here in the future,” she said.
Upchurch also plans to continue writing creatively, noting that it has always served as “an outlet” for her.
“There’s still that eight-year-old girl in her classroom whose hands are smaller than the keyboard she’s typing on — but she loves books so much that she wants to write her own,” Upchurch reflects. “I am 13 years removed from her now, but I hope I’m the author she wanted to be — of everyone, I try to stay most faithful to her.”
Kathy Swidwa