Linguistics Careercast

“The secret to wealth is not to be rich in money but rich in language” Samantha Beaver is a workplace communications analyst and linguist, business owner, wife, and mother. She earned a Masters in Applied English Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Since 2018, she has applied her linguistic expertise to help executive teams, leaders, and boards of directors optimize interpersona...

“My mission is to show people how much language they already know without realizing it” A linguist, writer, and podcaster based in Prague, Danny Bate has turned a lifelong passion with language into a career that spans teaching, academia, and online media. After completing his Master’s, he worked as a language teacher before diving into a PhD in Linguistics with the University of Edinburgh. Since...

“My linguistics work has allowed me to experience humanity on different levels” Joan Barker received a Master’s in Linguistics at Central Connecticut State University and spent much of her career abroad, holding positions in Africa and the Middle East. She’s worked as technical consultant, writer, instructor, and trainer, contracting with the Department of Defense to design and implement language...

“Where you land in a job might not be where you want to stay” Jen Polk is a career coach for professors, postdocs and PhD students looking to make the jump from academia to industry. She got her PhD in history at the University of Toronto and since 2013 she has guided students and faculty in identifying fulfilling opportunities that align with their goals and values, through 1-on-1 coaching, group...

Just a quick update – we’ve taken a short hiatus but we have so much more content to come: Interviews! Panels! Webinars! If you’d like to support us, we have a Patreon and our first Patron is the fantastic Lingthusiasm podcast ! And if you would like to be a guest on the pod, or know someone who would, get in touch via our contact form . New episodes coming soon! The post Linguistics Careercast Up...

“Networking is work, but it’s fun work – you get to talk to smart, fun people” Abby Bajuniemi is a linguist with 10+ years of experience leading UX research and content initiatives across multiple industries, working for organizations such as Google, Calendly, Medtronic, Princeton University, and the non-profit New_Public. She is a contributing writer on the intersection of UX and linguistics for...

“I thought: I don’t know which way to go. Wow – what a wonderful place to be!” Shannon DeJong is a linguist, namer, brand agency founder, writer, performer, artist, business advisor and coach; she’s worked big firms like HP, Google, Adobe, and Logitech as well as with non-profits, mission-driven orgs, startups, entrepreneurs and artists. She double-majored in linguistics and mass communications at...

“There’s so much you can learn from linguistics when you apply it to the business of naming” Deborah Ball has been working in naming, branding, content creation, marketing, and communications for more than 10 years in the UK and the US. Her special focus has been brand naming. She has a Master’s in Linguistics from the University of Oxford and an MBA from Durham University Business School. Over th...

“We take so much of communication for granted – until we can’t communicate” Emelia BensonMeyer is a speech-language pathologist specializing in evaluation and treatment of voice, airway, and swallowing disorders. She has an undergraduate degree in linguistics and a Master’s in Communicative Sciences and Disorders. Her background in linguistics has equipped her to critically consider and be mindful...

“I created Minority Languaging as a place to communicate, to share, and to debate” Eukene Franco-Landa is sociolinguist with a Ph. D. from the University of Miami who works at the intersection of language, identity, and legitimacy, especially in minoritized and bilingual communities, especially Basque, of which she is a speaker. Her dissertation explores how linguistic features become tied to perc...

This episode is an audio version of a virtual panel held online via the Linguistic Society of America , on August 16, 2025. This is part two of our conversation on GenAI and linguistics, this time focusing on Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, Ph. D.’s recent book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.” I am joined again by our amazing panel of linguists to talk abou...

This episode is an audio version of a virtual panel held at the Linguistics Career Launch in the summer of 2024, titled “User Experience Research for Linguists”. The moderator is Darrell Penta, and the two panelists are Josh Martin and Midam Kim. In this session, the panelists explore their journeys into UX research and what prepared them for the kind of work they do now. They share insights into...

“Don’t be afraid to reach for the job you want” Erin Kuester has a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Ohio University, and is a copywriter and content creator for service businesses, as well as a writing mentor and editor. She is also an experienced instructional designer. She is very active on Instagram and Tiktok, and at her own website. Erin Kuester on LinkedIn Erin Kuester’s website E...

This episode is an audio version of a virtual panel held at the Linguistics Career Launch in the summer of 2024, titled “Societal Impacts and the Ethical Use of AI”. The moderator is Aubrie Amstutz, and the two panelists are Patricia McDonough and Alfonso Sánchez-Moya. In this session the panelists reflect on the ethical impacts of AI and how qualitative researchers and linguists alike can address...

Live Linguistics Careercast coming your way on August 16! Join us for part two of our conversation on GenAI and linguistics, this time focusing on Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna, Ph. D.’s recent book “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.” And we’ll follow the taping with a networking event in Gather! Host Laurel Sutton will be joined again by Alicia Beckford Wass...

“Software makes me money, but linguistics makes me happy” Logan Kearsley is an experienced software engineer with a history in the education, solar power, and entertainment industries. He earned a BS in Computer Science and an MA in Linguistics, both from Brigham Young University, and is currently employed as a software engineer at Idaho National Laboratory. He blogs about conlangs and xenolinguis...

This episode is an audio version of a virtual panel held at the Linguistics Career Launch in the summer of 2024, titled “Content Creation – A Path to Alternative Careers”. The presenter is Erin Kuester, who has a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from Ohio University, and is a copywriter and content creator for women and queer-owned businesses. This workshop presents content creation and soci...

“I’m happy for the winding path that took me to this work” Kathryn Hymes is a technologist and computational linguist, currently serving as a director of product and innovation at Doctors Without Borders. Previously, she worked in leadership positions at multiple technology firms, most recently as the head of international product expansion at Slack and an advisor at Airtable. She holds an MS in c...

“If you understand why you’re making a career move, then don’t worry about explaining it” Tim Durgin (杜腾飞) is an ATA-certified Chinese-to-English linguist, translator, and analyst based in the Washington DC area. His primary focus is on written translation in several key domains, including video games, politics, national security, and contracts. Beyond his freelance endeavors, Tim has contribut...

“The buzz in LLMs now is all about training data” Andy Edmonds has an MS in Human Factors, Applied Psychology from Clemson University. He started his working career as a webmaster in 1995 and has since developed a huge breadth of expertise in UX, e-commerce, web analytics, online experimentation, data science, information retrieval, and software development methods at tech companies including Micr...

“I love the process of directing voice actors – and I never would have found out about it without the internet” Colette Feehan is an audiobook director with a PhD in linguistics who specializes in multi-language books, books with technical jargon, and multi-book series that require maintaining a strong pronunciation database. Colette’s doctoral research focused on the intersection of articulatory...

Linguists at Work! This is a special mini-podcast of the Linguistics Careercast called Linguists at Work. It’s a series of 5-minute interviews with career linguists, conducted by grad students in the Georgetown Linguistics program, in which they ask the question: “What’s your job and how did you get it?” Every interview focuses on a job that a linguist not only can do, but adds value to based on t...

“In tech, I feel like I’m giving a sociolinguistics 101 course once a month” This episode is a recording of a special live episode of the Linguistics Careercast podcast. Our panel of linguists discusses how artificial intelligence (especially Gen AI) is impacting linguistics as a field. We’ll cover topics like AI bias, challenges in training data curation, and implications of GenAI on online langu...

“Conversation designer jobs are inherently collaborative” Jyoti Iyer earned her PhD in linguistics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Since then she’s made the journey from theoretical linguistics to expertise in customer-facing language experiences.  She is currently employed as a conversation designer, working at the interface between customer-focused experience design and enterprise...

This episode is titled “Jobs in Tech for Qualitative Researchers and Social Scientists”. Our moderator, Alfonso Sánchez-Moya, guides a discussion with panelists Lex Konnelly and Jyoti Iyer on how backgrounds in linguistics and social sciences can shape innovation and drive meaningful change in tech companies. In this session, you’ll learn how to utilize skills and expertise in analysis, critical t...