Education

Ph.D. Departments of Linguistics and Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan, June 2002. Title of dissertation: In Search of a koiné in Sana'a

M.A. Near Eastern Studies (Arabic Linguistics), University of Michigan, December 1996.

B.S. Computer Science, (Cum Laude) San Francisco State University, 1987

Associate of Arts, (honors) Ohlone Junior College, Fremont, CA., Computer Programming - 1983

• In Progress-->> Masters in Computer Science Engineering, focusing on Artificial Intelligence, University of Michigan.

**** Relevant Courses already completed ****

Intro to Artificial Intelligence

Knowledge Based Systems

Text-to-Speech

Natural Language Processing

Advanced Phonetics (Speech sounds generation)

Language and Information Theory

Languages

English and Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic, Classical Arabic, and Yemeni, Moroccan, Egyptian and Palestinian dialects of Arabic) with a good reading knowledge of French and Hebrew.

I have also studied Akkadian, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.

Awards, Honors and Fellowships

• Rackham Pre-Doctoral Dissertation Writing Fellowship, September 2001 - August 2002.
• AIYS grant to study the possibility of a Yemeni urban koine for my Ph.D. dissertation, starting in January - December, 2001 .
• Foreign Language Area Studies Grant (FLAS), September 1998 - April 1999.
• American Institute for Yemeni Studies (AIYS) grant for intensive study of Yemeni Arabic, at the Yemeni Language Center in Sana'a, Yemen, May-August 1998.
• The Richard P. Mitchell Memorial Prize, April 21, 1998
• The Washington University in St. Louis' Advanced Arabic and Islamic Studies Intensive Spring Semester Abroad at the Arabic Language Institute in Fez, Morocco Fellowship, Jan. 6, 1997 - June 3, 1997
• Scholarship, University of Michigan Business School for "Business Arabic" summer program 1996.
• "Ernest N. McCarus Award for Excellence in Arabic", Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan, April 16, 1996.

Hobbies and Interests

• Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics using Prolog and Lisp programming languages.
• I am an amateur videographer with 200+ hours studio experience, and I have produced several half hour videos for Public Access Television.

Conference Presentations

• "What is a Word?", at The Processing of Arabic, Organized by Faculty of Letters, Department of Arabic, University of Manouba, April 17-20, 2002, Tunis, Tunisia.
• "Why there is no Koine in Sana'a, Yemen" 16th Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics of the Arabic Linguistic Society. March 1-2, Cambridge, UK
• "Brill's POS tagger and a Morphology parser for Arabic", 39th Annual Meeting of Association for Computational Linguistics & 10th Conference of the European Chapter, Workshop on Arabic Language Processing: Status and Prospects, July 6, 2001, Toulouse, France.
• "A Working Model for Diglossia: How can we accommodate the Arab perception that Arabic is a single linguistic system?", Association Internationale de Dialectologie Arabe, April 5, 2000, Marrakesh, Morrocco.
• "The Arabic-American Speech Community in Metropolitan Detroit: as heterogeneous as Detroit itself", NWAVE-28, October 16, 1999, Toronto, Canada.

Book Articles

• "Tabi'at al-Lugha al-'arabiyya wa Tatawwurhaa (The Nature of Arabic and its Development)", Translated by Dr. Hamza Ben Qablan Al-Mozeiny in Diraasaat fii Taarikh al-Lugha al-'arabiyya. Dar Al-Faisal Al-Thaqaafiyya, Al-Ryadh, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 2000

Professional Organizations

• Middle East Studies Association
• American Institute for Yemeni Studies
• Association for Computational Linguistics
• Association Internationale de Dialectes Arabes

Work Experience

• Graduate Student Instructor in Elementary Modern Standard Arabic 101, Fall 2000 at University of Michigan
• Programmer/CALL developer, for Dr. San Duanmu, Program in Linguistics, U of M Ann Arbor, 6/2000 - 8/2000
• Arabic Web-page consultant, Transparent Language, 5/2000 - 6/2000
• Graduate Student Instructor in Elementary Modern Standard Arabic 101-102, for 1999-2000 school year at University of Michigan
• Computer-Aided Language Learning developer, for Dr. Raji Rammuny, Dept. of Near Eastern Studies, U of M Ann Arbor, 9/98 - 6/99
• Linguistics Field Worker, for Dr. Lesley Milroy in Program in Linguistics at the the University of Michigan., 5/99 - 9/99
• Graduate Student Instructor in Elementary Modern Standard Arabic 101-102, for 1997-1998 school year at University of Michigan
• Software Engineer, Automotion , Inc. Ann Arbor, MI, 7/96 - 10/96
• Arabic Desk-Top Publishing, Dr. Raji M. Rammuny in Dept of NES at the .U. of M., off and on from 9/95 through 6/99
• Software Engineer, NetExpress , Inc. & sucessor CMC DataComm Inc, Foster City, CA, 9/92 - 6/95
• Firmware Engineer & QA Manager, Cygnet Technologies (Everex),Berkeley, CA, 94710, 8/87 - 8/92
• Computer Programmer, San Francisco State University Foundation, SF, CA, 1/87 - 8/87
• Software QA and Programming, Telelearning, SF, CA, 6/86 - 1/87
• Assembly Language Programmer, Pinpoint, Oakland, CA, 8/85 - 9/85
• Computer Operator, Zenith Dist., Co., SF, CA, 8/84 - 8/85
• Computer Operator, IBM. San Jose, CA, 3/83 - 8/83
• Computer Lab Assistant, Ohlone Junior College, Fremont, CA, 11/82 - 3/83
• Computer Operator, G.A. Smith and Co., Santa Clara, CA, 7/82 - 10/82
• Warehouse Worker, Hussman's Refrigeration Corp., Fremont, CA, 3/80 - 9/82
• Dock Worker, De Anza Trucking, San Leandro, CA, 8/79 - 2/80
• Computer Operator, G.A. Smith and Co., Santa Clara, CA, 9/77 - 12/78
• USAF, Computer Operator, 8/73 - 8/77

Computer Skills:

High Level Programming Languages:

Prolog, c++, Fortran IV, Fortran 77, c, Pascal, Basic, Common Lisp, Modula-2, and Cobol

Assembly Languages:

6502, 8051, 8085, 8086, 68000, MicroChip 17c44, IBM 360 macro assembly and Macro-11 (PDP 11/70)

Professional Engineering Applications for which I have written code:

• RS232 asynchronous serial communications, on the PC, the Macintosh and embedded applications
• Public Switched Telephone communications
• Device drivers for MTOS real time kernel
• Firmware for AT command set "smartmodems" and FAX modems
• Working with complex make files and conditional compile time switches
• Creating portable ROM-code for multiple platforms
• Creating test scripts using in-house script language
• Writing C code to automate engineering testing
• Servo-control for electrical motors using Proportional-Integrational-Derivative algorithms

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