I started with LINGUIST in 2001 as an undergraduate volunteer, interested in the then newly funded Electronic Metadata for Endangered Languages Data (E-MELD) project to preserve endangered languages data. Soon thereafter I was employed as a student editor for ten hours a week. During this time I was finishing my B.A. in Linguistics, TESOL, and German at Eastern Michigan University (EMU), and was employed as a beer merchandiser and a waiter. I followed up my B.A. by pursuing an M.A. in Linguistics and Language Technology at EMU, which has been funded through the gracious donations of loyal LINGUIST subscribers, as well as NSF. Though I still edit and post LINGUIST issues, I have since moved on to web design, programming, and am team leader and architect of E-MELD's School of Best Practice in Digital Language Documentation.

My personal research includes my descriptive work on Western Sisaala, a previously undocumented language spoken in the Upper West Region of Ghana. For my thesis, 'A Grammatical Sketch of Western Sisaala', I spent three months doing fieldwork among the Sisaala tribe in Lambussie, where I experienced life without electricity and running water. You can see me amidst the rice fields above, not looking fearful of the poisonous snakes (I knew a number of people that got bit, including a boy named Lucky, who luckily lived).

I am now a PhD student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Washington, but continue to volunteer time to the Linguist List. My other home page resides at UW at http://students.washington.edu/stiv/.

Personally, my greatest passion is world travel and I have been on every inhabitable continent except South America. If I had the resources I would travel the rest of my life away. I would never stop visiting new places and I would continue to keep travel journals and to compose poetry to be archived in some not-yet-existent format to be left as my legacy after death. When I get the resources I'll pursue this dream. And if it's not soon, I'm sure I'll just say #$%* it, and go for it anyway.

I hope that wherever you are, and whoever you are, that you're happy and healthy!