Projects & Interests
Language & Community
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Language Conservation
Earth is home to some seven thousand languages, and the vast majority are in critical danger. Linguists' best-case scenarios predict fewer than half will survive to the end of this century. This unprecedented mass-extinction event parallels the present mass extinction of Earth's biological organisms, and the most frustrating part is that languages are dying for no good reason. That is, multilingual children grow into adults with cognitive benefits and advantages over their monolingual peers, yet it is often the perception in struggling communities that heritage languages should be abandoned, and children should only learn to speak the language of the more economically advantaged communities. This is a misguided notion, because children will learn many languages perfectly and with no extra effort, if they have the opportunity. Much of my research and the work of other linguists focuses on countering this way of thinking and working toward finding ways to encourage a sense of ownership and pride about what makes each of out languages and dialects unique. -
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Jere Feu (Coral Initiative)
The Jere Feu Coral Initiative creates public awareness about the region’s most vital natural resource, it's rich marine ecosystem. Beginning in 2014, the Jere Feu organization has worked with community elders and industry and government leaders to educate locals on terrestrial and marine ecosystem interdependence and the pressures facing the region's marine health. Community elders have incorporated this information into the 'Jere' framework of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), so as to modernize the 'boboso' rules of cultural propriety to account for modern ecological threats that were not present at the ancient system's inception. In this video dive master and advocate, Adit Kaleumm, discusses the local ecosystem, the Jere system, and outreach work with local youth. -
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Freediving
At 50 feet below the surface, sounds in the body stop. At 100 feet below the surface, the ocean surrounds the body with more than 187,000 pounds of pressure and air in the lungs is squeezed to a sixth of the size, but every muscle twitch, itch, ache, and pain is gone. You are entirely alone, but there is no loneliness. Ralph Waldo Emerson's 'transparent eyeball' is realized; there is a muted sense of self with acute awareness of beauty and peace that surrounds. We are water; this is our element.
"Uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me"
–Emerson -
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Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan -
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Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan -
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Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan -
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Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan -
Close | ✕
Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan -
Close | ✕
Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan -
Close | ✕
Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan -
Close | ✕
Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan -
Close | ✕
Exploring
“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore... Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible... It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors... to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.”
― Ferdinand Magellan
Exploring & GIS Mapping
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About
Having worked extensively in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific, I bring a wealth of global experience and perspective to projects.
As Project manager & CMO for Organic Tale (a Bombay Natural Organics brand), I have been Responsible for developing the marketing strategy and e-commerce website from conception through rollout. Over eight years at the Center for Language and Technology, I have worked on simultaneous projects across all phases of development for products that service tens of thousands of end users at the University of Hawaiʻi and at partner institutions worldwide. I managed software feature development projects for enterprise CMS systems while serving as a communication bridge between users, engineers, and stakeholders. Here I played an integral role in planning and development of the first-of-its-kind audio-based CMS, Web Audio Utility (WAU), and I managed numerous feature implementations, compatibility updates, and data migration projects for BRIX CMS throughout the lifecycle to its conclusion. I also managed the development and renovation of computer labs and the planning and construction of dozens of online language-courses.
As the founder and principle investigator of Jere Feu, I was responsible for procuring initial operating funds and managing all Phase I technological and community-development projects in the Maluku region of Eastern Indonesia and Sarawak, Malaysia. Jere Feu is an organization that merges traditional indigenous knowledge—ecological, medicinal, and infrastructural—with modern technology. Our goal is to bridge traditional language and practices to modern domains (such as the Internet) and keep heritage cultural knowledge relevant in the modern world.
Jere Feu has led numerous projects in developing areas of Eastern Indonesia and Malaysia. Some of the highlights are the Master-Apprentice series, which partners with industry and government leaders to establish a forum that facilitates transmission of traditional knowledge from community elders to local youth; the Basa Sua mobile Sula-language Internet portal, which provided local news, native language utilities, weather, disaster warnings, and community forums to the Sula community of central Maluku from 2012 through 2017 in advance of the introduction of broadband Internet access in the region; and the Coral Initiative, which has led public awareness campaigns aimed at preserving the region’s most vital natural resource—bountiful sea.
Jere Feu projects have led to a marked increase in youth civic participation, gains in public health, ecological conservation, and and native language usage in communities with prevalent attrition. They helped establish a native-language online footprint prior to the introduction of broadband Internet access and the ensuing flood of dominant-language media and content. Representation of the native language online established an ‘inertia’ in which youth began to ‘choose’ to communicate and create online in the native tongue, and we hope this inertia will carry on indefinitely.
As a university lecturer in Japan, I honed my skills designing and delivering curricula to both seminar courses and individualized, small classes. Being responsible for 350+ students per semester across multiple subjects and courses taught me to effectively manage large numbers of people across concurrent projects.