Shalini Shankar is a sociocultural and linguistic anthropologist has conducted qualitative research with South Asian American youth and communities in Silicon Valley, with advertising agencies in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and with spelling bee participants and producers in various US locations.

Shankar’s current research, funded by the National Science Foundation (BCS-1323769) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, examines the world of competitive spelling in the context of brain sports, generation, and immigration. She investigates how spelling bees have grown into a mass-mediated, sport-like spectacles, what accounts for the South Asian American winning streak, and how this model of competition is proliferating worldwide. She has conducted ethnographic and sociolinguistic fieldwork with spellers and their families, spelling bee officials, lexicographers, and media producers.