Biography

I help build tech tools so others can flourish. I live at the nexus of people finding, accessing, and acquiring language resources and the organization and stewardship of language resources. Working with system users and supporting communities beyond specific sociology-technical systems requires a broad technical knowledge and a sensitivity to social contexts. I seek out the big picture and the minority language user. I have a passion for lowering technical, social, and legal barriers to sustainable self-managed cultural identity.

Interests

  • Language Documentation
  • Scholarly Communication
  • Language Resource Discovery
  • Orthography Usage
  • Tone in Orthographies
  • Accessibility & Usability of Research Data
  • Historical Linguistics
  • Minority Language Text Input

Education

  • Graduate Certificate in Information Agency Management, (2024)

    University of North Texas

  • M.A. in Linguistics, 2021

    University of North Dakota

  • B.A. in German, 2007

    Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Presentations

Conference talks & Special lectures

See all talks

Projects

Corporate & Personal projects

Community Memory and Language Archiving & Curation Training

Archival curriculum developement for graduate level instruction on language archives.

The Bridge

A Haverford Classics Project Supporting Language Learning.

All A Board

An entrepreneurial experiment making bespoke culinary wood boards.

Open Language Archives Community Research

A detailed look at information structure and technology issues in the OLAC community.

Toward a Comprehensive Data Privacy Law for Oregonians

A research undertaking at the U of O to look at privacy policy within the United States and gaps in the framework as it is experienced in Oregon.

XLingPaper

A software oriented collaboration improving the ease of scholarly publication in linguistics.

Language Documentation Collections: Assessment and Recognition

We edited a special collection at the Journal of Open Humanities Data which addressed the issue of Language Documentation Collections: Assessment and Recognition.

Kainji Bibliography

An essential resource for anyone doing research in Kainji langauge speaking areas.

u̱t‑Maꞌin oral histories and narratives

A project collecting Narratives and wordlists from the various lects of the u̱t‑Maꞌin language.

Chepang annotated bibliography

Taking an interdiciplanary look at science and language.

RefLex User Interaction Design

Strategy, technology, and user interaction consultation about RefLex.

Business Maturity Canvas

Discussing the business maturity of an ongoing business idea and a business in operation is a frequent task of IDX. This canvas was designed to facilitate that conversation.

Dan Bibliography

An essential resource for anyone doing research in Dan langauge speaking areas.

R-90

Working within SIL’s Ideation and Experimentation incubator to produce a product which gives real time language use and valuation metrics derived from a graph based architecture of known relationships.

U̠t-Ma’in Lexicography

A collaboration with Becky Paterson to organize the various layers of U̠t-Ma’in linguistic data into a shareable resource.

An Awesome list of Software for Endangered Languages

A Github collaboration to index open source software for minority or low resource languages.

Linguistic Services Planning

We use the Business Model Canvas to develop the business case for various SIL service offerings.

SIL Communication Strategy Consulting

Strategy and technology consultation with SIL staff to develop interdepartmental communications strategy.

The minority language typing experience

How much work is it to type languages with tonal markers in their orthographies?

User Experience Consulting on SIL.org

Worked with a team to bring modern features via Drupal 7 to the flagship website of SIL International.

Meꞌphaa and Sochiapam Chinantec Keyboards

Revolutionizing text input. We moved text input from being on a single OS via a non-unicode input method, to working on multiple OSes in Unicode.

Audio Digitization

SIL Americas Area project to digitize analogue audio mediums.

Photo Digitization

SIL Americas Area project to digitize photos documenting the people and the work of SIL in the Americas.

Text Digitization

SIL Americas Area project to digitize for electronic distribution many of its indigenous language resources in print mediums.

Usability & Language Resource Stewardship

This project seeks to make known issues in Language Resource Accessibility. It is primarily concerned with two facets of accessibility 1) the User Experience related to interacting with archived content; and 2) the aggregation of item level metadata about language resources in collections.

Geo-Linguistics

This project seeks to visually display patterns about languages as those visualizations relate to cartography.

Meꞌphaa Language Documentation

A collaboration with an experienced linguist. I contributed extensive metadata and technical audio-visual expertise a team of people from the USA and Meꞌphaa speakers.

Interdental approximant

An investigation and description of a rare and socially stigmatized speech sound where the tongue protrudes out of the mouth.

Teaching

Classroom & Workshop leadership

Teaching Philosophy

Teaching Assistant University of North Dakota

Personal Trainer Apple, Inc.

  • One-to-One trainer: iLife, iWork & OS X

Classroom instructor It’s a Small World

  • Elementary German teacher, Festus, Missouri

Classroom Teacher Junior Achievement

  • Economics: St. John Newman Catholic School, Maryville, Illinois

ESL Classroom Assistant International Institute, St. Louis, Missouri

Experience

Highlights from my most recent employment history.

 
 
 
 
 

Research Assistant

University of North Texas, College of Information

Aug 2023 – Feb 2024 Denton, Texas

The research project was administered by the University of North Texas, College of Information and funded by IMLS: RE-254860-OLS-23. The project Community Memory and Language: Archiving and Curation Training created and tested curriculum for curators of archival language collections:

  • Scholarly Author
  • Curriculm Developer
 
 
 
 
 

LEADING Fellow

The LIS Education and Data Science Integrated Network Group

The LIS Education and Data Science Integrated Network Group

Apr 2023 – Dec 2023 Haverford, Pennsylvania

The fellowship was administered by the Drexel University Metadata Research Center. I embedded within the Haverford College, Digital Humanities Department where we:

  • Scholarly Author
  • Investigated Data Managment Strctures in a Digital Humanities project
  • Report on Data Structures with recomendations for standardization for moving towards Linked Data
 
 
 
 
 

Thomas Intern for Research, Scholarly Communication Infrastructure

University of Oregon Knight Library

University of Oregon Knight Library

Apr 2023 – Apr 2024 Eugene, Oregon

Within the context Open Access publishing:

  • Conduct an enviormental scan of SASS services platforms related to open access publishing
  • Implimentation options for digital libraries and repository software
 
 
 
 
 

Paul Evan Peters Doctoral Fellow

At the University of North Texas:

  • Research metadata schemas used in OAI-PMH networks
  • Publish findings
  • Research language identification in metadata records via information extraction and classification
 
 
 
 
 

Director of Market Research

Royal Protocol

Royal Protocol

Sep 2021 – Mar 2022 Eugene, Oregon

Within the context of a technology startup:

  • NFT Asset Description
  • Legal Policy Summary
  • Organizational Development
  • Provided project based input related to competing products and services, along with technology choice comparisons
  • Interview candidates for new positions
  • Completed weekly research reports at the behest of HR Director, COO, CXO, and CEO
 
 
 
 
 

Research Assistant in Consumer Data Privacy Law

University of Oregon

University of Oregon

Sep 2021 – Dec 2021 Eugene, Oregon

Within the context of grant funded research at the School of Journalism:

 
 
 
 
 

User Interaction Designer

CNRS-LLACAN

CNRS-LLACAN

Mar 2020 – Jun 2020 Paris, France

Within the context of grant supported work on RefLex:

  • Visualization continuity
  • Complex search design
  • User Interface simplification
  • Typography
  • Menu structure
  • Final report
 
 
 
 
 

City Council Candidate

City of Eugene

City of Eugene

Feb 2018 – May 2018 Eugene, Oregon, USA

Within the context of the public election cycle prior to November Elections:

  • Met all requirements for lawful candidacy.
  • Ran campaign to advocate land use change and open govenance (especially operations data).
  • Competed and debated in a three-candidate race.
  • Received 10% of all votes cast. Final vote split: 10/11/78
  • Archived Website.
 
 
 
 
 

IDX Innovation Analyst

SIL International, IDX Innovation Virtual Team

SIL International, IDX Innovation Virtual Team

Jan 2018 – Aug 2019 Eugene, Oregon, USA

Within the context of IDX Innovation’s mission:

  • Identify opportunities to create customers.
  • Describe, plan, and report on innovation projects.
  • Evaluated existing corporate projects for growth potential.
  • Identified data sources for business intelligence.
  • Directed data scientist operations in the development of queryable business intelligence systems for asymmetrical data.
  • Advise the Chief Innovation Development Officer.
 
 
 
 
 

Usefulness Engineer

SIL International, International Language Program Training

SIL International, International Language Program Training

Jan 2011 – Jan 2018 Dallas, Texas and Virtual Team

Within the context of SIL’s Training mission:

 
 
 
 
 

Assistant to the Americas Area Access Coordinator

SIL International, Americas Area

SIL International, Americas Area

Jan 2010 – Aug 2012 Dallas, Texas, USA

Within the context of SIL America Area Administration’s mission:

  • Performed the duites of site manager for the SIL Americas Area Archival Digitization Program.
  • Recruited, led, and supervised 12-15 people across three teams.
  • Consulted industry standards for best practices related to audio and video archiving.
  • Established archival quality digitization procedures for language documentation and minority language education materials.
  • Collaborated with SIL’s Language & Culture Archive to establish metadata schemas for audio and video materials, both for discovery and processing of materials through digitization work flows.
  • Managed several teams digitizing various carriers of language documentation and cultural artifacts: Photos, Books, Audio.
 
 
 
 
 

Assistant to the Americas Area Linguistics Coordinator

SIL International, Americas Area

SIL International, Americas Area

Jan 2010 – Aug 2012 Dallas, Texas, USA

Within the context of SIL America Area Administration’s mission:

 
 
 
 
 

Development Specialist

WycliffeUSA

WycliffeUSA

Jan 2008 – Dec 2019 Orlando, Florida, USA

Within the context of nonprofit operations:

  • Developed leads generating over $600,000 in revenue.
  • Managed a donor-based revenue goal of $40,000 per year.
  • Created and manage budgets with restricted and unrestricted funds.
  • Logistics planning and support.
  • Presented the organization’s mission and cause to donors.
 
 
 
 
 

Mac Specialist

Apple, Inc.

Apple, Inc.

Oct 2007 – Feb 2008 St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Working at Apple retail stores I:

  • Developed complete solutions based on customers’ specific needs.
  • Provided one-on-one training to customers on Apple products.
  • Created brand advocates by providing an amazing, personalized shopping experience to each and every customer.
 
 
 
 
 

Network Administrator

SIL-UND.

SIL-UND.

Jun 2007 – Aug 2007 Grand Forks, North Dakota

Working as SIL-UND staff I:

  • Set up and mothballed network hardware for summer program.
  • Managed FTP server.
  • Managed network users and guest devices, integrating with existing University network infrastructure.
  • Persisted educational data as required.
  • Advised the director on technology changes and new opportunists for integrating with UND technology services.
  • Oversaw student workers and managed project goals and tasks for student workers.
 
 
 
 
 

Mac Specialist

Apple, Inc.

Apple, Inc.

Oct 2006 – Dec 2006 Smithhaven, New York

Professional Certificates

CITI Conflicts of Interest - COI Researcher

Meets the University of Oregon’s requirements for working with US federal funding and organizational policy related to Conflicts of Interest.
See certificate

Social & Behavioral Research - Basic/Refresher

Meets the University of North Texas’s requirements for working with US federal funding and organizational policy related to Instutional Review Boards for projects working with human subjects in the social sciences.
See certificate

Human Research Social-Behavioral-Educational Researchers

Meets the University of Oregon’s requirements for working with US federal funding and organizational policy related to Instutional Review Boards for projects working with human subjects in the social sciences.
See certificate

Professional Communities

Professional Affiliations & Technical Workgroups — past & present

Non-Government Organization

  • SIL International Intellectual Property Policy Team

Linguistic

Audio Archiving

Educational Metadata

Internet & Language Metadata

Personal

Family & Social fit

Marital Status

StrengthsFinder Themes

Belbin Team Roles

  • Resource Investigator
  • Specialist
  • Monitor Evaluator

Visual Aural Read/Write Kinesthetic Learning Style

  • Visual: 11
  • Kinesthetic: 6
  • Aural: 5
  • Read/Write: 2

Myers-Briggs Personality Type

I usually vacillate between ‘E’ and ‘I’. Usually this means that the NT archetype is much stronger than the single value for ‘E/I’.

People I’ve Worked with

Mother Tongue Speakers

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Master Story Teller

Scholars and Artists

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Privacy Scholar

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Postdoctoral Researcher in Journalism & Privacy

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Postdoctoral Researcher

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Linguist

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Director, Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing

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Field Linguist

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Software Programmer

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Field Linguist

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Digital Artist

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Data Scientist

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Digital Artist

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Education Administrator

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Linguist

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Linguistics Consultant

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Phonetician / Director, NCSU Phonetics Laboratory

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Field Linguist / Phonetician

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Linguist

Archivists and Librarians

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Director, Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing

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Language Archivist

Entrepreneurs

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Digital Artist

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Data Scientist

Instructional Collaborators

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Linguist

Skills

Learning a language is almost as easy as forgetting a language. All skills ebb and flow with fluency in various seasons of life.

Language skills


Audio technologies

Microphones: Dynamic, Cardioid, Hypercardioid, Shotgun, Audio Boundary Microphones
Media Carriers: Reel to Reel Tape, Cassette Tape, CD, Microcassette, MiniDisc, Solid State Drives, DVD, VHS
Live & Studio Sound: Mixers (Behringer), Monitor and Speaker balancing


Visual media

Photography, Lightroom, Canon Cameras.


Metadata schemas

schema.org, Dublin Core, Open Languages Archive Community (OLAC), Learning Resource Metadata Innovation (LRMI), VRA Core, MODS, OAI-PMH, JSON+LD, XML.


Digital tools

Operating systems: Linux — Ubuntu and Wasta, OS X/MacOS 10.6-10.12
Website hosting: WordPess, Drupal, Hugo, MediaWiki
Authorship & Scholarship: LaTeX, Overleaf, XLingPaper, Endnote, Zotero, Markdown, Google Apps
Marketing: MailChimp.
Coding: VS Code, Github, HTML, Bash
Other: Omnigraffle, Confluence, FLEx (Linguistic Lexical Data Managment).

Lesser experience with: ELAN, Praat, Audacity, WeSay, SayMore, Bloom, CSS, Python, MySQL, XML, Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, Pro Tools, FinalCut Pro.


Strategy games

Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne


Non-digital art mediums

Woodworking, Canvas (Painting, Melted Crayons), Sketching

Contact

Let’s open a video call.