Public Engagement
Selected engagement and outreach
For many years, I have been dedicated to sharing language research with the public through a variety of outlets. A few of these efforts are highlighted here.
Research at Planet Word
My NSF-funded project, a collaboration between UMD, Howard University, & Gallaudet University, develops a partnership between language researchers and Planet Word to advance research and public understanding about the science of language. Read more at this site.
Language and Life Project
I worked at the Language and Life Project, housed in the North Carolina State University Linguistics Program, for many years. You can read about some of my experiences doing outreach and engagement in various communities with this group in Wolfram, Reaser, & Vaughn (2008). The many projects I was involved in during that time include: several museum exhibits and documentary films, a dialect awareness education curriculum for 8th graders, and an oral history CD and book for a rural African American community in western North Carolina. Some of these are outlined in more detail below.
Science Communication Fellowship program at OMSI
I trained as a Science Communication Fellow at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) in Portland, OR, where I regularly participated in Meet a Scientist and OMSI After Dark events.
Planet Word
Planet Word is an interactive museum of language in Washington DC that opened in October of 2020. I am on the Advisory Board, and was also involved in various capacities with the planning of the museum.
Spanish Voices documentary film
At the Language and Life Project, I co-produced a documentary film called Spanish Voices (2011) with Danica Cullinan, Walt Wolfram, Neal Hutcheson, and Phillip Carter. A description of the film: Spanish speakers drawn to the southeastern United States over the past couple of decades have had a notable impact on the identity of many urban and rural communities. Spanish Voices reveals some of the social and personal issues that are part of language contact situations worldwide -- and many that are unique to the Southeast. Students and teachers, musicians and dancers, recent immigrants and long-term residents, share their experiences with the difficulty in maintaining a home language, the challenge in learning a new language, and the varieties of both Spanish and English that have become part of their Southern experience.
Freedom's Voice museum exhibit
Freedom's Voice, a multimedia museum exhibit at the Outer Banks History Center in Manteo, NC, explored the African American experience on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, particularly on Roanoke Island, where many current residents reside on the land given to their ancestors when the area was officially made a Freedmen's Colony for slaves freed following the Civil War. Along with Drew Grimes, I was co-responsible for the exhibit's conceptualization, content, design, production and fabrication. The exhibit ran from 2006-2007. [Will fix photos soon!]
Celebrating Muzel Bryant museum exhibit
Muzel Bryant was the last residing member of the only African American family residing on Ocracoke Island, NC since the Civil War until her death in 2008 at age 103. This multimedia museum exhibit at the Ocracoke Preservation Society in Ocracoke Island, NC in the Spring of 2008 celebrated her life. I was responsible for the exhibit's conceptualization, content, design, production and fabrication. [Will fix photos soon!]
Graphic and web design work
For many years I worked as a freelance graphic, web, and interaction designer. Some samples of my work (some outreach-related, some not) are shown here, mostly so I don't lose track of them (this section has not been updated in, like, 10 years). [Will fix photos soon!]