Ling: Alumni notes

Alumni - Notes

Lauren Ackerman
(2008)

...wrote (October 30, 2009): "After working at BBN Technologies in Cambridge last year, I am now a graduate student in the Linguistics Department at Northwestern University. My website is here: http://gradstudents.wcas.northwestern.edu/~lma777/."

Nicole Acrey
(2005)

... is now a student in the Ph.D. program at the Institute for Linguistics in Potsdam, Germany.

Matthew Adamo
(2005)

... served as a research assistant at Brown University in the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences.

Tuuli Morrill Adams
(2002)

... went on to graduate study in Linguistics at NYU, with interests in phonology and neurolinguistics. Here's a link to a paper she presented in August 2007 at the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences: "Phonetic Cues Identifying English Compounds". See this web page.

Alyssa Therese Adreani
(1998)

... received her BA in Linguistics (1998) and then her MA in Applied Linguistics (2000) here at BU; she is now working as a Development Officer. Alyssa writes (September 2007) of her BU training in linguistics: "The experience served me well - it was a strong factor in my being hired at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Thank you!"

Jessica Alexander
(2004)

... worked in university enrollment in New Zealand post-graduation; taught English in France and China (CELTA in Hamburg, Germany); and is now freelance translator and editor (French and Mandarin) TranslatorsCafe.com. [photo is from the web page]

Sameena Naseem Ali
(1995)

... writes, in August 2006: "After BU I went straight to Kyoto, Japan to teach English through the JET Programme for three years. I followed up with some Japanese study in Tokyo resulting in a 1st Level (top) passing score for the Japanese Proficiency exam. Many Japanese companies pay more attention to certification than work experience. I landed a job in a securities brokerage which followed with another in financial software." She moved back to Toledo, Ohio two years ago with her Cuban husand and son, and is now working as a freelance interpreter and working her own Mary Kay business.

Julio Alves
(1983)

... received his PhD in Applied Linguistics at BU in 1991. He is now Director of the Jacobson Center for Writing, Teaching and Learning and a lecturer in the English Department at Smith College, where he teaches introductory writing courses.

Jacqueline Asher
(2004)

... went on to a program in Audiology and Speech Science at the University of Maryland.

Lauren Elizabeth Avalos
(1999)

... received her MA in Media Ecology from NYU in 2004 and then worked at Simmons College for four years. Last summer, she moved across the river from Simmons to MIT (http://www.mitadmissions.org). She is an Assistant Director of Admissions there, working on undergraduate recruitment and selection. She also plans and directs one of the largest annual events at MIT, Campus Preview Weekend (CPW), for admitted students and their families.

Melissa Baese
(2004)

... is now Melissa Baese-Berk, a graduate student in Linguistics at Northwestern University, with interests in Speech Production, Speech Perception, Bilingualism, Music Cognition, and Psycholinguistics. She attended the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute at MIT and Harvard in 2005. See her home page.

In October 2009, she wrote: "As I'm sure you all know, I was joined this year by Lauren Ackerman - BU is now the most well-represented undergraduate institution in our department. :) It looks like we're likely to overlap only by one year, since I'm hoping to finish next summer. I'm officially on the job market now, though I'm looking at mostly post-doc positions. Things are going well in the program for me. I've been able to be very active in presenting my work to local, national and international audiences. I've had one first-authored paper published, and several papers I'm an author on have been accepted or submitted for publication, with several more in the pipeline." [photo from the web page]

Nomi Pearlman Burstein
(1994)

... is working as a technical writer in the documentation group at CSG Systems (formerly Lucent Technologies Software Products Group (formerly Kenan Systems)) and a freelance editor. Her goal is to become a lexicographer.

Heather Caunt
(2002)

... is currently enrolled in the Applied Linguistics doctoral program at BU.

Jacqueline My Chau
(1994)

... is working at Boston University as an Accounts Coordinator.

Karly Chester
(2006)

... writes (5/21/2008):

I'm just back from a week in Madrid, where I plan to move in September to improve my Spanish. I'm going to teach English to make money, and outside of my lessons, I'll be completely immersed in my favorite language. I couldn't be more excited.

Harlan Dalzell
(2006)

... is in the folk-rock band, The Princes of Hollywood. They have just released a new CD, A Change of Venue.

Cecilia Damiani
(2001)

... went into book publishing. She then went on to get a Masters at North Carolina State University in the Education department, where she also worked in the school system. She wrote: "I really appreciate the linguistics knowledge I have--it helps me daily with children who have trouble reading and understanding texts." Now she is teaching 8th grade in Cary, NC.

Meagan DaSilva
(2004)

... after teaching English in Quito, Ecuador for a while, took a position as a 6th grade Spanish immersion teacher with the Miscoe Hill School.

Quinn Duffy
(2006)

... just completed his MA in Applied Linguistics here at BU, where he also worked as a research assistant with the American Sign Language Linguistic Research Project.

Sarah Teague Durant
(1998)

... "loved her Linguistics degree but changed career paths after BU. She worked in several nonprofit organizations in California before getting her Masters of Public Policy at Berkeley. From there she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her wife and soon-to-be baby and works in the field of educational policy research." (November 2009)

Meredith Enish
(2000)

... received her MBA in Strategy and Business Analysis from BU in 2005. She is now the director of Faculty and Staff Administration in the Boston University College of Engineering.

Neiloufar Family
(2001)

. ... will be completing her PhD in Cognitive Science in Paris at EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales). She is doing cognitive linguistic research on the Persian verbal system. Here is an abstract of a presentation at the Second International Conference on Iranian Linguistics in August 2007: A constructionist account of light verb constructions in Persian.

Lisa Meredith Feldstein
(1996)

... joined the National Center for Children in Poverty in January 2006 as Executive Assistant to NCCP's Director. Previously, she was the Educational Programs Manager for the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.

Jennifer Fick
(2004)

... completed her MA in Linguistics at the University of Chicago. She received a scholarship in 2006 to attend the Library Information Services Program at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Daniel James Frayne
(1995)

... went to medical school at the University of California, Irvine and graduated in 1999. Dr. Frayne has specialized in family practice.

Kristine Gilchrist-Minasidis
(1994)

... is Associate Director of the BU University Service Center.

Laura Gonnerman
(1988)

... is now an Assistant Professor at McGill (having previously been a Visiting Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the University of Southern California). She received her BA from BU in 1988, two MA's from Middlebury College--in French and German--and then went on to do an MA and Ph.D. in Linguistics at the University of Southern California. She completed her dissertation in 1999 with Elaine Andersen: Morphology and the lexicon: Exploring the semantics-phonology interface. She then took a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in the Department of Psychology (at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition) at Carnegie Mellon University.

"My two main areas of interest are: 1) the structure of the lexical semantic system; and 2) the representation and processing of mrophologically complex words in English and other languages. To explore these areas, I use a combination of research in normal adult processing, language loss in Alzheimer's disease and other disorders, connectionist modeling, and imaging." See her home page. [photo from web page]

Annabel Mary Greenhill
(1995)

... entered the graduate program in Applied Linguistics at Boston University, while also working as a Research Assistant at Tufts University. She received her MA in 2003.

Allyson Gunsallus
(2007)

... is now thinking about going to graduate school. She writes (5/18/2008):

Sarah Hardison
(2006)

.,.. writes (5/26/2008):

I am starting my Masters in Education this summer. I plan on teaching in Department of Defense Schools once my Masters is complete. I will begin teaching High School Spanish locally this Fall.

Laura Hirshfield
(2005)

... entered BU's Master of Education program in Education of the Deaf. She is currently teaching English at Acton-Boxborough High School -- and loving it :).

Marjorie Hogan
(2003)

... completed her MA in Applied Linguistics at BU as of September 2006.

Christian Hurley
(2005)

... is, as of September 2007, in his final year of the MA program at Emerson in Media Arts, concentrating in Audio Production. He writes: "It's the nexus of a lot of my interests (media, sound, language, computers). I'm very excited about it... I've also been working at a law firm in downtown Boston since graduation as a paralegal which I'll continue to do part time while I'm in school. Things are going quite well though!"

Maria Iogansen
(2005)

... is working as a translator of English, Russian, Spanish, French, and Italian.

Vera Izrailit
(1993)

... went off to do graduate work in linguistics at the University of Finland in Helsinki. She now describes herself as a software engineer and linguist (among other things).

Hallie Katarski
(2002)

... wrote: "After BU I moved to Washington, DC and took a job at Environmental Defense, an NGO, working on ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the Russia Federation. I wanted to work in the public sector on issues relevant to Russia, and was able to use my language skills extensively, translating and writing papers in Russian, organizing and attending conferences in Moscow, and working directly with Russian colleagues. After two years there, I went to the University of Maryland and was able to begin graduate studies in Public Policy, while maintaining a full-time job at the University. But that changed this summer when I got engaged and moved to Raleigh. So now I am remaining involved in environmental issues with the Duke Climate Change Policy Partnership, and I'm hoping to get back into grad school to finish my public policy degree. No language or Russian connection to my work right now, but I hope to get back into international development and/or international policy some day." See her web page. According to that page, "Hallie (Katarski) Knuffman joined the Climate Change Policy Partnership in November 2005 as Research Analyst. In addition to conducting research, her primary duties are to coordinate the efforts of the three Duke University participant groups -- Nicholas School, CGC, and Nicholas Institute -- and graduate student researchers." [photo from web page]

Zoya Khenkina
(2005)

... entered a graduate program in Global Marketing, Communication and Advertising at Emerson College.

Yung Hee Kim
(1996)

....writes (in October 2007): "After almost seven years working at a large insurance brokerage firm, I decided to switch gears and worked on getting my Masters of Arts in Teaching degree, and am now teaching kindergarten at International Community School in Decatur, GA. I literally get to work with students from all over the world, as well as put my French to use, albeit a bit rusty."

Vera Lee-Schoenfeld
(1997)

... recently received her PhD in Linguistics at University of California in Santa Cruz. For 2005-06, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Linguistics Department at Northwestern University. Since 2006, she has been a Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Swarthmore College. [photo from web page]

Marc Levy
(2004)

... "is a Program Coordinator for the Social Sector Division (SSD)" at Devtech Systems, Inc. "Before working with DevTech, he served as Project Associate at a New York law firm and helped manage educational resources for a faith-based development NGO. Marc’s international development education includes graduate coursework at Copenhagen Business School, and, more recently, at Tulane University, a semester abroad in Niamey, Niger, and a minor in African studies. Marc is an active member of the Society for International Development and an alumnus of two schools within Boston University. He holds a BS in Business Administration and Management and a BA in Linguistics. Marc is proficient in Hebrew, French, and Mandarin Chinese and has basic knowledge of Zarma and Danish."

Andrew Lord
(2006)

... is now studying for his MA in Applied Linguistics at BU and serving as a teaching fellow for CAS LX 250 Foundations of Language.

Marilyn Manley (née Feke)
(1999)

... went on to receive her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. She is now an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Rowan University. "Her teaching and research interests include topics of theoretical linguistics and applied linguistics, with a specialization in Hispanic sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. She has presented papers at national conferences and published on Hispanic sociolinguistics and Quechua (the indigenous language of the South American Andes, spoken today by over ten million descendants of the Incan Empire). She has lived and studied in the United States, Spain, Mexico, and Peru and has carried out linguistic research with speakers of English, Spanish, Quechua, and Juchita'n Zapotec." See her web page. [photo from web page]

John Manna
(2002)

... is now in the graduate linguistics program at Rutgers University. Update from John (9/30/05), now in his third year of the PhD program: I'm finishing up my qualifying papers, and this year I'll be working on nominal and verbal anaphora in Japanese using a dynamic logic/online update framework... Also, I'll be working with one of my friends in the Psych department on the linguistic reasoning (syntactic, semantic) for the difference in comprehension time between was-passives and got-passives." See his home page. [photo from web page]

Maijaliisa Mickols
(2006)

... writes (5/21/2008):

Joe Mondello
(2002)

. ... was, last we knew, teaching English in Korea.

Ah - for a video update (he's looking to move back to the US from Korea), see him on YouTube.

Mark Monfasani
(2002)

... returned to graduate school at BU to study Chinese religion. He received his MA in September 2007.

Lindsay Morgia
(2006)

... writes: "I recently received my teacher's license in Mild/Moderate Disabilities and will be teaching at the Italian Home for Children in Jamaica Plain. I will have a classroom of six little ones ages 6-8 who all have behavior disorders. I'm very excited, but also very nervous. It's sure to be a challenging experience!" (August 2006)

Nadia Nassif
(2003)

... complemented her Linguistics BA with a French minor and study of Japanese language. Soon after graduation, she spent a year and a half living in Japan and working as an ESL and Business Communication trainer while honing her Japanese conversation skills. Nadia continued with a steady stream of work related to ESL, including teaching, curriculum development, program development, management, and many other creative and administrative roles. She writes (May 11, 2008):

Springboards Language Training and Consulting, LLC

Jeni Parham
(2003)

... went on to do graduate work in Linguistics at the University of Chicago.

Pamela (Honora) Parris
(2003)

... took an internship at MIT Press after graduation.

Matthew Picard
(2006)

... became involved with Teach for America.

David M. Pimentel
(1998)

... is now the Director of Residence Hall Community Learning Centers at the University of Michigan.

Gretchen Ransow
(2006)

... served as a legal intern for Free Legal Advice Centres in Dublin in 2006. Here's a picture.

Daniel Joseph Sax
(1994)

... went to Dublin, to study in the Speech and Language Processing program at Trinity College. He is currently a translator and English language editor of Academia, the popular-science magazine of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He is also a Lecturer in Polish-English translation at Warsaw University. He has recently published two book translations: Ten Centuries of Polish Literature, by the scholars of the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences (2005), and Polish Academy of Sciences: Past and Present (2006). See his web page. [photo from web page]

Olga Shergova
(2002)

... went to Paris and studied at Sorbonne (Applied Foreign Languages), then during an internship at UNESCO, found out about Media Education. She is now in the Ph.D. program (Moscow State University); her thesis deals with linguistic methods in Media Education.

Jennifer Sia
(1995)

... completed an MEd in TESOL at BU in 1999 and is now doing a PhD on SLA at the University of London. Here's the abstract of a paper she presented in April at the Bloomsbury Conference 2007: "The Native Speaker through the lens of Prototype Theory of Concepts."

Dawn Smalls
(1999)

... is currently practicing law at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, a litigation firm based in New York. After graduating from BU, she served in the Clinton Administration as Assistant to Chief of Staff John Podesta and Special Assistant to the Federal D.C. Interagency Task Force. She left D.C. in Summer of 2000 and entered Stanford Law School that fall. Her publications include Linguistic Profiling and the Law, 15 Stan. L. & Pol'y Rev 579 (2004), a paper that she wrote in conjunction with Professor John Baugh's ongoing research on Linguistic Profiling (racial profiling based on one's speech). She recently participated in the "Linguistic Profiling and Linguistic Human Rights," conference at Washington University in St. Louis.

Erin Smith
(2005)

... has worked as a sales and marketing specialist at Harris Investment Management. She's now pursuing her MBA in Finance at Loyola University of Chicago (2007-2009(expected)).

Win Swarr
(1992)

... went to Japan to teach English for two years after graduating. Upon returning to the US, he went back to school and became a programmer. He now works for Canon USA as a Systems Engineer in the Medical Division. Win writes: "I found a lot of similarity between computer science and Linguistics. I live in Fort Lee NJ near NYC." See his home page.

Christina Tarbell
(1994)

... is currently a Professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she uses industry-standard software applications as a medium to teach students about the relationship between language, culture, and design. Her background in Linguistics was instrumental to her current pursuits with art and design.

Joanna Upton
(2002)

... is living in Niger. In December 2005, she wrote:

Through one experience or another, I've gradually been launching myself into the development field. I was RA for the BU Program here last year, and then began working part time for a small NGO called Rain for the Sahel and Sahara. I administrate our programs here, which are primarily in support of nomadic schools up in the Agadez region. We do various projects to support the community and the school, such as school gardens and grain banks. One element that I have been working toward adding to our programs is adult/women's literacy, in both French and Tamascheq, the local language of the region which has traditional literacy that has been fading out over the past couple of generations. With my focus on linguistics I have always been a proponent of national language literacy; but since literacy on the part of the parents has a positive effect on the liklihood that they will understand the value of education and send their children to school, we're able to slide this in under our primary education sector.

I've gone into all of this with my focus on education and language. In one way or another, though, my life circumstances keep pushing me toward health. While back in the States for much of 2004, I got a job in Public Health in Arlington County, which was a great perspective-builder after (and before) so much time here. Personal circumstances have put health in the forefront for me as well, to an almost humorous extreme: everywhere I am, babies tend to be born, and in difficult circumstances. I helped carry my best friend here through over a year of treatment for Tuberculosis, which included spending a great deal of time at the public TB clinic in Niamey and giving Streptomycin injections. This friend's little sister had a crisis with cerebral malaria, and I was the only one available for her immediate care. My personal role is hence quite often impromptu nurse and midwife. The circumstances I have seen here (as well as in Arlington) have made me think a lot about health care problems and inequalities. In Niger especially, not only is the situation drastic, but there are internal racisms among the population that put certain people at an even greater disadvantage.

Through one thing after another, I've been accepting the message that is sending me down the path of public health and health justice. Most of my life and studies has been geared toward cultural understanding, and I've had wonderful opportunities and privileges to expand on that. I take that as a great responsibility, and see this now as a way of applying that awareness to something real and valuable. I've taken some time to focus on what I want my graduate studies to be, but I'm in the process of applying to PhD programs in Anthropology and Medical Anthropology.

Jasmin Urban
(2007)

... is just beginning her graduate studies in Linguistics at the University of Chicago. Her name should soon be appearing here.

Jamie Vidich
(2003)

... has been enrolled in an exciting new graduate program in European linguistics at the University of Freiburg. He wrote: "What I particularly like about it is that it has a strong focus on minority languages, standard and non-standard varieties, and multilingual and multicultural communication in Europe. There is even a class on the Sardinian language!" As of May 18, 2008, Jamie writes: "I'm now in the phase of completing my Master's degree in Freiburg and awaiting the next step in life. I am writing my thesis now, and hope to have graduated by September." Jamie's thesis is on the phonological changes that took place in the borrowings of Anglo-French loanwords into Middle English. "Then it is for destiny to decide what is in store for me. I'll let you know when I figure it out myself. :-)"

Anika Webster
(2006)

... has her own blog. She writes: "I am currently a Peace Corps Trainee in Senegal. So far I am loving it and have yet to die from the heat." [March 2008]

Stephen Weiss
(2004)

.... is VP and Director of Technology at STYLESIGHT. "In his role, he is responsible for creating, deploying, and maintaining STYLESIGHT's internal network and web services... Stephen is responsible for all hardware and software support internal to the company. Prior to joining the company, Stephen developed web presences for various educational institutions and departments, including work for Lehigh University, Boston University, and the Thoreau Language Institute."

John Thomas Wellehan
(1997)

After graduating, John moved to Chicago and worked on a trading floor, in film production, in derivatives analysis, and then as market data specialist for a derivatives trading group within a bank, which is what he was doing when last we heard from him (April 2003), at which time he was considering going back to school...

Kari Wiborg
(2004)

... entered the linguistics dept. at UT Austin, spent some time in St. Petersburg studying Russian, and is hoping to do something with Slavic linguistics.

Jocelyn Wood
(2006)

... writes (5/23/2008):

Since graduating, I went on to complete my Master's in Bilingual Speech Language Pathology at Hofstra University (Long Island). I graduated this past week and will be working as a Speech teacher for the Board of Ed in Brooklyn come September. My linguistics skills came in handy and led me to the top of the class. In addition, I have continued doing research, primarily focusing on bilingual language development and models of lexical storage in the bilingual population. A PhD is somewhere in my future!

Alainna Wrigley
(2004)

"I'm working as an editor and translator in a Hong Kong law office." [June 3, 2007]

Linguistics students at Commencement Exercises (vintage 1994)

left-to-right: Christina Tarbell, Kristine Gilchrist,
Jacqueline Chau, Daniel Sax, Shannon Moran, Nomi Pearlman