MA Linguistics student focusing on computational linguistics and NLP.

Employment

• Apr. 2020-current Illumination Works, llc. Data Science Consultant

  • Projects
    • Created tools for extraction of structured information from forms and tables in contract documents using image processing and optical character recognition
    • Built machine learning models (support vector machines, convolutional neural nets, k-means clustering) for identification of data elements in contract documents
    • Collaborated with data engineers and software engineers to integrate machine learning and extraction tools into document AI pipelines
  • Research
    • Applied BERT word embeddings to machine learning tools for sentiment analysis and named entity recognition of hotel customer review data
  • Writing
    • Wrote a proposal that was selected for a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) effort for the Air Force on automation of data rights understanding

• Aug. 2019-May 2020
  Center for Language Teaching Advancement, Michigan State University
  Graduate Assistant

  • Conducting surveys and data analysis to investigate faculty attitudes towards Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) classes (to be presented at the CIBER Business Language Conference March 2020).
  • Weekly office hours to advise students on corpus linguistics and analysis, web portfolios, and phonetics.

• Aug. 2018 - May 2019
  Department of Linguistics and Languages, Michigan State University
  Research Assistant

  • Analyzing Different Syntactic Contexts for Zero in Thai
    • Collecting data parallel sentences of zero in different contexts in Thai and English and categorized each context to translation patterns.
    • Established categories of nouns in Thai differentiating potential translation patterns from English to Thai.
    • Comparative fieldwork in Thai, Lao, and Hmong
  • Other Experiences
    • Annotated Scottish English word list recordings in Praat.
    • Visualizing effects of word frequency on lexical decision tasks using statistical models.

• Aug. 2016 - May 2018
  Residential Education and Hospitality Services, Michigan State University
  Resident Assistant

  • Planned and directed events for a university neighborhood and increased attendance from 2016 to 2017 by 100 students.
  • Grew number of students attending neighborhood social justice discussion events by 50% in Spring 2017.
  • Provided campus resources and support to on-campus residents.

• Jan. 2017 - May 2018
  College of Music, Michigan State University

  • Organization and maintenance of college music collection.
  • Communication between orchestra faculty, students, and rental music companies.

• Sep. 2016 - May 2018
  College of Music, Michigan State University

  • Preparation of rehearsal spaces and concert venues for MSU Symphony Orchestra
  • Communication with orchestra faculty, students, as well as the venue staff at the local performing arts centers.

Education

• 2018-2020
  Michigan State University
  Master of Arts, Linguistics

• 2014-2018
  Michigan State University
  Bachelor of Music, Viola Performance

• 2010-2014
  Home School
  High School diploma

Projects

• Aug. 2019 - May 2020
  Phonotactic Learning with Neural Nets

  • Training neural networks on phonetic transcriptions of English dictionaries.
  • Using neural networks to distinguish acceptable English sound combinations and assign acceptability ratings.
  • Measuring model acccuracy by correlation coefficient with human judgments.

• Feb. 2019 - Jul. 2019
  Understanding Speech Production using X-Ray Microbeam Data

  • Analyzed oral gestural data from the Wisconsin X-Ray Microbeam corpus.
  • Utilized Matlab and wrote R scripts for data wrangling, preprocessing and statistics.
  • Found a significant effect of speech rate and sound type on gestural overlap of consonants. [ p<0.01]

• Jan. 2017 - Jan. 2018
  Instructor of Viola

  • Instructed viola to orchestra students in East Lansing Public Schools through participation in MSU College of Music string pedagogy program.
  • Mentored students in preparation for school evaluations and competitions.

Skills

Languages: English (native), Spanish (conversational)
Programming: Python, R
Data Science/Machine Learning Frameworks: Pandas, Tidyverse, Scikit-Learn, NLTK, PyTorch, Keras
Statistics: Multivariate Analysis, Hypothesis Testing, Inferential Statistics

Awards

Summer 2016 Baroque Project Fellowship Crescendo Summer Institute Invitation and travel funding for baroque performance in Hungary
May 2014 4-year Full Scholarship MSU College of Music Music performance scholarship for undergraduate study.

Activities

Feb. 2019 - current Tutor, LIN 471 - Sociolinguistics
Aug. 2018 - current Member, MSU Linguistics Student Organization
Feb. 2018 - current Violist (sub), Lansing Symphony Orchestra
Sep. 2019 - Nov. 2019 Board member (event planning), Careers and Linguistics at Michigan State
Aug. 2018 - Aug. 2019 Member, MSU Semantics Group
Aug. 2018 - May 2019 Webmaster, member MSU PhonoLab
Aug. 2018 - May 2019 Member, MSU Linguistics Python Group

Relevant Coursework

Fall 2019 CSE 842 - Natural Language Processing 4.0
Fall 2019 LIN 427 - Laboratory Phonetics
Spring 2019 CSE 331 - Data Structures and Algorithms 3.0
Spring 2019 LIN 825 - Phonological Theory II 4.0
Spring 2019 LIN 834 - Syntactic Theory I 3.5
Fall 2018 LIN 837 - Advanced Study Semantics & Pragmatics 4.0
Fall 2018 LIN 824 - Phonological Theory I 4.0
Fall 2018 LIN 484 - Data Analysis for Linguists 3.5
Spring 2017 LIN 471 - Sociolinguistics 4.0