I was born in Austin, but grew up mostly around Fort Worth, which is where I currently live. I graduated High School in Euless, and attended UTA on and off for ten years until finishing my interdisciplinary undergraduate degree. While not at university, I started a writer's commune in Boston, sold my belongings and vagabonded around Europe for awhile, helped build an orphanage as a missionary in Mexico, and designed life-saving equipment in the defense sector. Right now, I'm working as a systems and software engineer while finishing a Master's in linguistics. I don't know yet where I'll go for Ph.D.
I'm currently a graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington, Department of Linguistics and TESOL, working on a Master of Arts in Linguistics degree. My research interests in the study of linguistics are phonological modeling, speech recognition, syntactic, semantic, and lexical disambiguation, automatic grammar construction, onomastics, semiotic theory, and social and historical linguistics. More is available on academia.edu.
My undergraduate studies were in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics in UTA's Interdisciplinary Studies group. This involved research and writing across linguistics, computer science, sociology, psychology, economics, and mathematics. If you've never heard of interdisciplinarity, I have a brief introduction to it, including a template for use in interdisciplinary papers.
I have more than a decade of experience in software and systems engineering, most of it centered around internet technologies. I also have a moderate amount of experience in graphic design, writing, editing, and translation.
The Resume and Curriculum Vitae I most frequently use are free to download:
My full Curriculum Vitae is also available online. If you're interested in my other resumes, or to request a list of references, please contact me.
I also work on a few open source and online projects, most of which somewhat related to my academic research. I frequently could use some help with something. If you're interested, let me know and we'll see where you can fit.
High-functioning Autism (Aspergers), Synaesthesia, and Eideiticism are my primary superpowers. Asperger's puts my IQ in the top 99.999th percentile. Synaesthesia causes me naturally to see sound, hear light, and read and do math in colors. Eideticism is a type of near-photographic memory. I've written more on the latter two here. This is what allows me to learn other languages so quickly: Autism makes syntax, grammar, and morphology easy while eideticism allows me to learn vocabulary incredibly quickly.
Because of this, I speak English natively and have a good working knowledge of Latin, Attic-Ionic Greek, Russian, French, and German. I can also process Icelandic, Sanskrit, Spanish, and a small handful of others for a total of around twelve so far. Add two to that number if you count things like Klingon and Esperanto. My interest in most languages I work with is academic: I want to know how and why they work, and how to enable technology to process them. The next languages on the list, in order, are Arabic, Turkish, Mandarin, Choctaw, and Japanese.
It seems like every social website nowadays wants you to list your favorite books, movies, and music on your profile. Personally, I don't fancy having to update twenty different websites whenever I discover a cool new band or read an engaging book. Because of this, I keep these lists here. If you care to help feed this habit, I have a wish list on Amazon.com.
Authors: I will read anything by T. C. Boyle, Italo Calvino, Noam Chomsky, Douglas Coupland, Ray Jackendoff, Milan Kundera, Stephen Levitt, Rick Moody, or Tom Robbins.
Books: 1984, The Art of War, Atlas Shrugged, The Bhagavad Gita, Brave New World, Breakfast of Champions, Catcher in the Rye, Cosmicomics, The Dialogues of Time and Entropy, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Fahrenheit 451, The Flashman Chronicles, The Fruitful Darkness, Generation Me, Generation X, Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, "Gödel, Escher, Bach", Hamlet, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Holy Bible, HOWL, Languages of the Mind, Leviathan, Life After God, The Little Prince, Lord of the Flies, Microserfs, Placing Words, Programming Perl, The Remains of the Day, A Social History of American Technology, The Spiral Dance, Still Life with Woodpecker, Tao Te Ching, Two Treatises of Government, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Utopia, The Watchmen, The Wealth of Nations, and White Noise.
1 mile north, A Perfect Circle, Aimee Mann, Air, The Album Leaf, Amanda Palmer, American Analog Set, Andrew Bird, Android Lust, Ani Difranco, Animal Collective, Aphex Twin, !!! (pronounced "Bang Bang Bang"), Bear vs. Shark, The Beatles, Belle and Sebastian, Ben Folds, Ben Folds Five, The Beta Band, The Bird and the Bee, Björk, Bloc Party, Boards of Canada, Bon Iver, Booker T. & The MGs, Brack Cantrell, Butcher the Bar, Broken Social Scene, Cake, Calexio, Coheed and Cambria, Cream, Crescent, Cursive, Dar Williams, The Decemberists, Deerhoof, Devendra Banhart, DeVotchKa, DJ Dieselboy, Dirty Three, Djivan Gasparyan, DNTEL, Do Make Say Think, Dream Theater, The Dresden Dolls, Efterklang, Ellen Allien, Elucido, Elvis Costello, Emily Haines, Explosions in the Sky, Figurine, Flaming Tusk, The Flaming Lips, Fleeting Joys, Four Tet, G. Love and Special Sauce, Giuseppe Verdi, Godspeed you Black Emperor, Goldfrapp, The Good, the Bad, and the Queen, Gregory and the Hawk, Gruff Rhys, Heavenly, Helios, Her Space Holiday, Hot Chip, I Am Robot And Proud, Imogen Heap, Iron & Wine, Iron Maiden, Japancakes, Jasmin, Jeff Beck, Jeff Buckley, Johnny Cash, Junior Boys, Jurassic 5, Justice, Klaxons, KMDFM, Klee, Kraftwerk, Ladytron, Lali Puna, LCD Soundsystem, Led Zeppelin, Lindstrøm, Lou Reed, Low, M83, Magnetophone, Marconi Union, Maria Taylor, The Mars Volta, Massive Attack, Mastodon, Metric, Menomena, Modest Mouse, Mogwai, The Mountain Goats, Mouse on Mars, Múm, Nike Drake, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, The Notwist, Of Montreal, Ok Go, Ola Podrida, Opeth, The Owls, Papercuts, Pink Floyd, People Press Play, Peter Bjorn and John, Phish, Phonat, Pink Floyd, The Pixies, PJ Harvey, Placebo, Plus Device, Portishead, The Postal Service, Prince, The Prodigy, Propellerheads, Pullman, Quarashi, Queen, R.E.M., Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Röyksopp, Rush, Russian Circles, Seize Them!, Sigur Ros, Silversun Pickups, Smashing Pumpkins, Soul Coughing, Spiritualized, Stars, Stars of the Lid, Stereolab, Steve Reich, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Styrofoam, Sufjan Stevens, The Tallest Man on Earth, Tapes 'n Tapes, Taraf de Haïdouks, Tarwater, Tegan & Sara, Terre Thaemlitz, Tom Waits, Tortoise, U.N.K.L.E., The Velvet Underground, Venetian Snares, We, We Are Scientists, The White Stripes, The Who, Wolf Parade, Woods, Wye Oak, Yes, Yo La Tengo, Zazie, and Zemfira.
2001: A Space Odyssey, Across the Universe, Baraka, A Beautiful Mind, American Beauty, O Brother Where Art Thou, A Clockwork Orange, Amelie, Clerks, Dogma, Donnie Darko, Dr. Strangelove, Dune, Empire Records, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Fifth Element, Fight Club, Grosse Point Blank, High Fidelity, Lord of the Rings (all of them), Pi, Planet of the Apes, Pulp Fiction, Rain Man, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, The Royal Tennenbaums, Star Wars (A New Hope, Return of the Jedi), and Tron.
Not having owned a TV in more than a decade, the only TV shows I've ever taken a liking to have been those I watched as a kid or have more recently seen on DVD: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Star Trek (TOS and TNG), and Twin Peaks.
Is there any particular book you think I should read, band I should listen to, or movie you think I'd like? Let me know!
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