Hi! :)

I am a linguist working in the intersection of natural language analysis, software engineering, and data management. My background is in Indigenous language documentation, morphosyntax, and language technology in low-resource contexts.

As the Technology Coordinator for FirstVoices, I wrangled two software projects (web and keyboards), a platform/database redesign, a data migration pipeline, a user consultation project team, the user support desk, and all documentation. I also got to prototype several features to ensure that they worked for 90+ unique language varieties!

As a PhD and postdoctoral researcher, I worked closely with the Gitxsanimx̱ language for 10 years. I worked regularly with elders, collected a lot of data and built a system for processing it, analyzed novel aspects of the language’s morphosyntax, and published my work. I looked a lot at problems relating to agreement patterns, ergativity, the internal structure of words, and verb-first sentences. I also did a lot of teaching, mentorship, presenting, and collaboration. I continue to work on community language revitalization initiatives in a support role.

Positions

FirstVoices Technology Coordinator - First People’s Cultural Council
FirstVoices Technology Associate - First People’s Cultural Council
Postdoctoral Fellow (NEH-NSF Documenting Endangered Languages Fellow, 2020-21) - University of Arizona
Postdoctoral Fellow (SSHRC, 2018-20) - University of Arizona

Affiliations

Education

PhD, University of Toronto (2018)
MA, University of Toronto (2013)
BA (Hons.), University of British Columbia (2012)
Launch School for Web Development (BE 2021)
Institute on Collaborative Language Research (2016 - U of Alaska Fairbanks)

Place

I am from Edmonds (Suquamish, Stillaguamish, Snohomish), and now live in Tucson (Tohono O’odham, Pasca Yaqui). I have benefited immensely from my time living and working in Vancouver (Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, Sto:lo) and Toronto (Huron-Wendat, Seneca, Mississaugas of the Credit).