Research

Conversational AI, Human-AI Interaction

• Zhukova, M. (2025). Conventions in Digital Communication: A Linguistic Analysis of Emojis and Human-Computer Interactions. Doctoral Dissertation. University of California, Santa Barbara.
• Zhukova, M., Brehm, L., Todd, S. (2024). How Do GenZ Users Process Chatbot Memory Lapses? An Eye Tracking Study. Poster. CAMP6 (California Meeting on Psycholinguistics), Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA.
• Zhukova, M., Brehm, L. (2024). How Do GenZ Speakers Use and Process Emoji in Chatbot Conversations: An Eye-Tracking Study. Poster. 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. NYC, NY.
• Zhukova M. (2023). AI as a Research Participant: Tips, Tools, and Techniques. UX Magazine.
• Wang H., Wang W., Saini R., Zhukova M., Yan X. (2023). GauchoChat: Towards Proactive, Controllable, and Personalized Social Conversation. Amazon Science. In Alexa Prize SocialBot Grand Challenge 5 Proceedings.

Multilinguality and Code-Switching

• Winata, G. I., Hudi, F., Irawan, P. A., Anugraha, D., Putri, R. A., Wang, Y., … Zhukova,M., … & Ngo, C. W. (2025). WorldCuisines: A massive-scale benchmark for multilingual and multicultural visual question answering on global cuisines. \textit{Proceedings of the 2025 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (Volume 1: Long Papers)}, 3242–3264. Albuquerque, NM: Association for Computational Linguistics.
• Winata, G., Kar, S., Zhukova, M., Solorio, T., … & Kuwanto, G. (2025). Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Linguistic Code-Switching. In Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Linguistic Code-Switching.
• Winata, G., Kar, S., Zhukova, M., Solorio, T., Diab, M., Sitaram, S., … & Bali, K. (2023). Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Linguistic Code-Switching. In Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Linguistic Code-Switching.
• Kar, S., Winata, G., Zhukova, M. (2022). Code-Switching and Multilinguality NLP (BoF Session). Invited speaker: EMNLP 2022, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
• Zhukova, M., Kor Chahine I., Uetova E. (2019). Some Trends in the Assimilation of Syntax in the French-Speaking Environment: on the Material of the RLC Corpus. Poster: ”Russian language in the multilingual world” Conference, HSE University, Moscow, Russia.

Perception and Interpretation of Emojis

• Zhukova, M., Xu, N., Wang, J., Brehm, L. (2026). Interpreting Emojis Literally and Nonliterally: A Community-Based Study of Children’s Pragmatic Development. Poster: CAMP[8] (California Meeting on Psycholinguistics). UC Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
• Zhukova, M. (2025). Conventions in Digital Communication: A Linguistic Analysis of Emojis and Human-Computer Interactions. Doctoral Dissertation. University of California, Santa Barbara.
• Zhukova, M., & Herring, S. C. (2024). Benign or Toxic? Differences in Emoji Interpretation by Gender, Generation, and Emoji Type. Language@ Internet, 22(Special Issue), 74-108.
• Zhukova, M., Brehm, L. (2024). How Do GenZ Speakers Use and Process Emoji in Chatbot Conversations: An Eye-Tracking Study. Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.
• Zhukova, M. (2024). Emoji Processing in Conversations Between GenZ Users and Chatbots: An Eye Tracking Study. Invited talk. UC Santa Barbara Department of Linguistics colloquium, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
• Zhukova, M. (2023). Drawing Parallels Between Emblems And Emoji: A Thumbs-up Case Study. Poster: 1st International Multimodal Communication Symposium (MMSYM), Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain.
• Zhukova, M. (2023). Emoji And Identity Perception. Invited talk: International Multimodal Communication Centre (IMCC), University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
• Zhukova, M. (2023). Exploring Legal Interpretation of Emoji. Invited talk: Visual Language Lab, Tilburg University, Tilburg, NL.
• Zhukova, M. (2022). Emoji Gestures As an Extension of Gestures in Digital Communication: Creation and Documentation of the Dataset ”Gesture Emoji: Use in Twitter” for Russian and English. Poster: 9th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS 9), IL, USA.
• Zhukova, M. (2022). Aspects of Self-Expression in Twitter via Gendered and Skin Tone Modified Emoji. Talk: Society for Linguistic Anthropology 2022 Spring Conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.

Inclusive Language

• Bedin C., Benesh M., Zhukova, M., Zimman L. (2025). Expansive, intersectional… and quantitative?? Innovating critical approaches to gendered sociophonetic variation. Talk. International Gender and Langugae Association Conference 2025 (13IGALA).
• Bedin C., Benesh M., Zhukova, M., Zimman L. (2024). Current norms and best practices for collecting and representing sex/gender in linguistics: Towards ethical and inclusive methodologies. Proceedings of the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America.
• Bedin C., Benesh M., Zhukova, M., Zimman L. (2024).Current norms and best practices for collecting and representing sex/gender in linguistics: Towards ethical and inclusive methodologies. Talk. 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. NYC, NY.
• Bedin C., Benesh M., Conrod K., Zhukova, M., Zimman L. (2024). The gender question: Current best practices for asking about sex/gender in linguistic research. Organized session. 2024 Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. NYC, NY.
• Zhukova, M. (2023). Under erasure: Linguistic innovations in response to anti-LGBTQIA+ laws in Russia. Talk. Organized session “Trans Linguistic Logics: Spatial and Embodied Epistemologies Across Modalities”. AAA/CASCA 2023 Annual Meeting. Toronto, Canada.
• Bedin C., Zhukova, M., Zimman L. (2023). Operationalizing gender: Methods for statistical modeling of open-response demographic data. Talk. The 51st Annual New Ways of Analyzing Variation Conference. NYC, NY.

Multimodal Discourse, Co-Speech Gestures

• Zhukova, M. (2024). Language and body in place and space: Discourse of Japanese rock climbing by K. Karaoke. Book Note. Language in Society 53(3).
• Zhukova, M. (2022). Expression of Spatial Deixis via Co-Speech Gestures: Discourse Analysis of Motion Events in Russian. Poster: Neglected Aspects of Motion-Event Description 2022, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
• Zhukova, M. (2022). Double Self-referential Encoding in Interactive Context:Gestural Patterns for Russian. Poster: 9th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS 9), IL, USA.
• Zhukova, M. (2021). Without Saying Anything: How Linguists Study Gestures? Invited talk: Science Slam by EducationUSA Russia, Moscow, RU.
• Zhukova, M. (2021). Gesture, Language and Cognition: Current Methodology. Invited talk: Computation and Experiments In Linguistics Group (CEILing), UC Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
• Zhukova, M. (2020). Co-speech Gestures Accompanying Verbs of Motion in Russian. BA Thesis, HSE University, Moscow, Russia.

Lexical Typology, Motion Events

• Zhukova, M. (2022). Constructions with Verbs of Motion in Russian: Gestural Patterns. Poster: 9th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS 9), IL, USA.
• Zhukova, M., Kor Chahine I. (2020). Frantsuzskiy Glagol TOMBER i Yego Sinonimy: Sverkhu Vniz i Ne Tol’ko [French verb TOMBER and its synonyms: from top to bottom and other cases]. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana, XVI (1), Typology of the verbs of falling, Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, pp.225-247.
• Zhukova, M. (2019). Falling in French and Russian. Talk: Corpus Linguistics Summer School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
• Zhukova, M. (2019). Typology of Evaluative Adjectives: Czech and Russian. Talk: 47th International Philological Conference, Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg , Russia.
• Zhukova, M. (2019). Specific Cases of Falling in French Based on a Frame Theory. Poster: Workshop Verbs of Falling in Languages of the World, Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Zhukova, M. (2019). Evaluative Adjectives in Czech: a Corpus-Based Study. Poster: Summer School of Linguistics, Charles University, Czech Republic.