Curriculum Vitae

I am a linguist with an interest in phonology and iconicity, as well as NLP and data-driven linguistics. My current research interests are sound-symbolic features of Japanese, the interaction between phonotactic constraints and sound-symbolic features, and the impact of sound symbolism on language acquisition and development.

Besides my academic experience, I am also a German and Japanese translator with more than 10 years of experience in the automotive, legal and medical fields. My work as a translator informs my academic research both in knowledge and approach; I am extremely adept at researching and internalizing the salient points of a field, style guides, or even simple term preferences for a both familiar and new subject domains.

  • University of New Mexico, PhD in Linguistics (2026– )
    Advisor(s)‍ ‍Dr. Stefon Flego


    San Francisco State University, MA in Linguistics and Certification in Computational Linguistics (2023–2024)
    Grade 4.0
    Advisor(s) Dr. Anastasia Smirnova; Dr. Jenny Lederer
    Select Courses Phonology and Morphology
    Computational Linguistics
    Applied Computational Linguistics
    Topics in Language Analysis: Structure of English
    Contemporary Semantic Theory
    Syntax
    Topics in Sociolinguistics: Language in Society

    University of Leeds, MA in Applied Translation Skills (2012–2013)
    Grade Merit
    Advisor(s) Dr. Caroline Summers
    Select Courses Computer-Assisted Translation
    Methods and Approaches in Translation Studies
    Principles and Applications of Machine Translation
    Corpus Linguistics for Translators
    Specialised German-English Translation
    Specialised Japanese-English Translation

    University of Leeds, BA in German and Japanese (2006–2010)
    Including a year abroad at Fukuoka University, 2007–2008, and a term abroad at Heidelberg University, 2009
    Grade 2:2
    Select Courses Japanese 1–3
    Advanced Japanese in Context
    German Core Language 1–3
    The Politics of Language from Modernity to Late Modernity
    Language and Society in the German-Speaking World
    German War Fiction since 1990
    Gender, Culture and Representation in German History 1871–2000
    Sino-Japanese Relations
    Sexuality, Subcultures and Stigma

  • 2026

    Automatic Identification of Phonetic and Semantic Patterns for Iconicity Research: A Transformer Approach.
    In prep, accepted as an oral presentation at IcoLL 2026 in Nagoya, and as a post-conference proceedings paper in the Iconicity in Language and Literature series (John Benjamins). The latest version of the model originally presented in 2024, using up-to-date machine learning approaches (a Japanese-trained transformer) and improved clustering (HDBSCAN). This version focuses on onset sounds in monomorphemic words with the goal of creating a dataset for use in future research into iconitiy in Japanese.

    2025

    Automatic Detection of Phonestheme-like features in Japanese: Insights for Cognitive Sound Symbolism Research
    Poster at CogSci2025 in San Francisco and published in Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. An update to my 2024 sound symbolism paper exploring the applications for cognitive sound symbolism – in particular the utility of this data to language development and acquisition and its relation to the bootstrapping hypothesis.

    2024

    Sound symbolism in Japanese and the Challenges of NLP Approaches
    MA in Linguistics (SFSU) Capstone paper, presented at the Fall 2024 MA English Graduate Student Conference. A paper exploring the current state of cognitive and NLP approaches to sound symbolism research in general and in Japanese. Also presented is a design for an NLP approach to identifying sound symbolism in Japanese, as well as the challenges posed by the Japanese language to this and other NLP applications.

    The Furry Fandom and Conceptual Metaphors of Identity Craft
    MA in Linguistics (SFSU) Class paper, presented as part of a Topics in Language Analysis class, Spring 2024. The project explored the use of conceptual metaphor by members of the Furry subculture to talk about furry identity and the act of identity craft within the fandom. As part of this project, I built a corpus of ca. 22k words from over 100 respondents to collect data about specific metaphor usage.

    2023

    An initial investigation into the cross-linguistic intelligibility of Japanese phonesthetic ideophones
    MA in Lingustics (SFSU) Class paper, presented as part of a Contemporary Semantic Theory class, Fall 2023.Serving as a first step towards my CE, this paper experimentally tested whether non-Japanese speakers were able to intuit the understanding of reduplicative Japanese ideophones. Using data gathered from 21 survey respondents, it was possible to conclude that the meaning of certain ideophones may be accessible to non-Japanese speakers.

    2012

    An exploration of the predictability of human evaluation scores of a machine translation system from automated evaluation scores across varied text types.
    Applied Translation Skills (Leeds University) Class paper. A paper empirically testing the efficacy of the BLEU method of automatically evaluating machine translation output when applied to technical and literary texts, finding that the method was less predictive of quality for literary texts, but highly predictive with technical texts. This was undertaken as part of a class taught by Dr Bodgan Babych, who had previously undertaken extensive research on the BLEU algorithm.

    Extended DE>EN Translation and Commentary of Downtown Blues by Myra Çakan
    MA in Applied Translation Skills (Leeds University) Capstone project. A translation of an excerpt of a German cyberpunk crime novel, and a commentary discussing the approaches necessary for a work of fiction in a highly stylized science-fiction subgenre.

    Extended JA>EN Translation and Commentary of The Video Game Textbook (ゲームの教科書) by Hitoshi Baba and Takamitsu Yamamoto
    MA in Applied Translation Skills (Leeds University) Capstone project. A translation of an excerpt of a Japanese textbook discussing the theory of video game design, and a commentary discussing the approaches necessary for a non-fiction, instructional work.

  • 2024–Present Research Lab Assistant | The Experimental and Computational Linguistics Ensemble Lab (ECOLE) | SF Bay Area, USA
    Currently researching how large language models and humans simplify texts, with a focus on conceptual metaphors. Responsibilities include background research, paper synthesis, and research and discussion input.

    2017–Present Freelance German and Japanese LSP | Self-employed | SF Bay Area, USA
    Self-managed language services with a particular focus on legal and automotive texts, using professional Japanese and German skills to provide post-editing, translation, transcreation, and review, with a translation output of more than 15,500 words a week

    2014–2016 In-house German and Japanese Translator | SDL plc | Sheffield, UK
    Worked primarily with automotive clients to provide translation, review, and quality assurance for content ranging from basic vocabulary lists to commercial advertising copy and complex legal documentation for high-profile luxury car brands. As the sole Japanese-speaker on staff at that time, I was also responsible for quality assurance for outsourced Japanese work, and for managing freelancers across extremely large projects with challenging deadlines for household name clients in both the English and Japanese-speaking markets

    2013–2014 Freelance German and Japanese Translator | Self-employed | Leeds, UK
    Provided translation services for a variety of clients and text types, including especially rental agreements and banking contracts, but also encompassing subjects such as professional emails, historical textbooks, and fictionn text goes here

    • Worked as an Instructional Support Assistant with Dr Teresa Pratt in Introduction to the Study of Language (2024) at SFSU, leading a section of around 20 students in discussion and work sessions once a week, as well as grading and feedback responsibilities.

    • Taught adult learners of English in Germany at MAN Diesel & Turbo, Berlin, Germany (2011). Students included engineers, logistics planners and managers with skills ranging from basic to almost fluent.

    • Volunteered as a language assistant in German classes at Urmston Grammar School, England (2005). Students ranged from 12–13 year olds in beginner German classes to 14–15 year olds preparing to take GCSE German exams.

    • Academic expertise and research skills, in particular in the fields of iconicity, phonology and computational linguistics.

    • Native English speaker with excellent composition skills.

    • Fluent German and Japanese, conversational French, beginner Spanish and Cantonese.

    • Research skills for technical, specialized concepts and vocabulary.

    • Dedication to deadlines and clear communication of time frames.

    • Certified in Natural Language Processing with a focus on corpus linguistics, word embeddings and machine learning frameworks.

    • Advanced knowledge of Python. Created and processed a 1.2-billion-word Japanese corpus for academic research applications.

    • SDL Certified for SDL Trados Studio and experienced with Omega T, MemoQ and Déjà Vu.

    • Comfortable implementing, maintaining, updating, and creating termbases and translation memories.

    • High-level understanding of machine translation frameworks, including generative AI implementations.

    • Advanced user of Excel and other Microsoft Office applications.