Current Members

Students

Alex Smith
Cameron Duval

Cameron is a PhD student in the Linguistics Department at the University of Alberta. His research work mainly involves the use of statistical methods to model linguistic structure, particularly in morphology, and how these quantitative findings relate to cognition, typology, and formal theory. At the ALT Lab, Cameron is working on optical character recognition of Lushootseed texts and WordNet integration into the Plains Cree Online Dictionary.

Daniel Dacanay

Daniel Dacanay is a Master’s student in the Linguistics Department at the University of Alberta. His research principally concerns the use of computational and manual methods of semantic analysis on large corpora such as dictionaries, predominantly in Plains Cree. At the ALT Lab, he works chiefly on digitizing and semantically classifying existing Plains Cree dictionaries, annotating spoken audio, and document translation. Outside of the ALT Lab, he takes interest in structural typology and comparative semantics, as well as being an avid vexillologist and trombonist.

Lorena Martín Rodriguez

Lorena is a MA student in the School of Linguistics and Language Studies at Carleton University. Her research interests focus on the creation on computational tools and resources for under-resourced languages. She is an MA graduate of Computational Linguistics in University of Tübingen and has worked with Guajajara, a Tupian language spoken in the State of Maranhão, Brasil. At the Partnership, she is involved in the development of ASR tools for multilingual speech data.

Olga Kruikova

Olga is a PhD student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Saskatchewan. Her research interests include, but are not limited to, Northern Dene languages, Dene languages’ morphosyntax, computational methods for linguistics analysis, and corpus linguistics. She works primarily with Upper Tanana, a language spoken across the U.S./Canada border in the Yukon Territory and in eastern interior Alaska. At ALTLab, she is currently involved in the development of the Upper Tanana verb forms generator. She is also a part-time Korean teacher. In her free time, Olga enjoys embroidery and weaving.

Rae Anne Claxton

Rae Anne is W̱SÁNEĆ from SȾÁUTW̱, born in Quw’utsun and raised between both of her communities on Vancouver Island. She is passionate about learning the languages of her people, SENĆOŦEN and Hul’q’umi’num’, and supporting language reclamation through resource development. Rae Anne is a PhD student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta. She received her Master’s degree from Simon Fraser University. Her thesis, titled lhwet tse’ xwi’em’? hwi ’een’thu tse’: How I learned to perform a Hul’q’umi’num’ story, outlines the steps she took to learn and tell one long story. Rae Anne is dedicated to reclaiming language use in her family and contributing to the accessibility, understanding, and use of technology to support and strengthen language use in community. Outside of her studies, Rae Anne participates in First Peoples’ Cultural Council’s Mentor-Apprentice Program where she is gaining fluency in Hul’q’umi’num’ (a dialect of Halkomelem) from her si’lu, Sarah Modeste. Her interests are vast, however, her favourite pastimes are spending time with her family, baking, and listening to Hul’q’umi’num’ stories – “The truth about stories is, that’s all we are.” – Thomas King

Postdoctoral and research fellows

Katie Schmirler – Postdoctoral research affiliate

Katherine is a postdoctoral researcher, working under Dr. Inge Genee at the University of Lethbridge on the Blackfoot Language Resources project. She completed her PhD in Linguistics at the University of Alberta in 2023 under the 21st Century Tools project. Her background is in description and maintenance of Indigenous North American languages and in comparative Algonquian. Her dissertation focused on the computational modelling of Plains Cree syntax. She is currently applying her experience in the computational modelling of Plains Cree to modelling Blackfoot to create an intelligent online dictionary.

Other Professionals

Dr. Felipe Bañados Schwerter

Dr. Felipe Bañados Schwerter is a software developer at ALTLab. Felipe holds both a B.Eng.Sc and a M.Sc. degree from the University of Chile, and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia. Felipe’s research focused on the design and foundations of gradually typed programming languages, and he currently maintains and develops ALTlab’s intelligent dictionaries and other 21st Century Tools for Indigenous Languages. When he is not at the office or at the computer, Felipe enjoys gardening, listening to records, and exploring the River Valley.

Héloïse Torck – Partnership Administrative Assistant

Héloïse is the Project Administrator for ALTLab and 21st Century Tools for Indigenous Languages. After graduating with a BA in Spanish and Translation from the Catholic University of Lille, France, she came to the University of Alberta where she completed an MA in Applied Linguistics and a BA in Native Studies. Through her studies and volunteer work, she developed her administrative skills and awareness about Indigenous issues. She can be contacted through the general Partnership email, 21.tools@ualberta.ca.

Former Members

Postdoctoral fellows

Danny Hieber – Postdoctoral Fellow

Danny is a Ph.D. Candidate in Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His work focuses on the documentation, description, and revitalization of native languages of North America, with an eye towards linguistic typology and functional theory. He works primarily with Chitimacha (Sitimaxa), an isolate once spoken in Louisiana and now being revived by the Chitimacha Tribe on the basis of archival materials, and Plains Cree, an Algonquian language widely spoken in Canada. He also runs the Digital Linguistics (DLx) project, dedicated to creating web-based tools for linguistic data management.

Students

Ansh Dubey
Atticus Harrigan

Atticus is a graduate student in the Department of Linguistics and Lab Manager (recording infrastructure). His interests include Native American languages, corpus linguistics, and computational methods for linguistic analysis. Theoretically he has an interest in cognitive grammar and its interface with morphosyntax and semantics. In working with the ALT lab, Atticus aids in recording, management of annotations, and principally develops the Plains Cree finite state machine that provides the backbone for the machine analysis and generation of Plains Cree.

Dominic Kadlec
Karoline Antonsen

Karoline is a Masters student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta and works for the ALTLab as a research assistant. Her research interests are Dene languages, lexical relations, and language revitalization. At the ALTLab she is currently working on tone correction and semantic classifications in the Tsuut’ina database.

Ruben Moegel

Ruben is a Masters student in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta, which he joined after graduating with his BA in general linguistics and computational linguistics at the University of Zürich. His research at ALTLab is mostly focused on structuring data and feeding it into finite-state language technology frameworks. His further interests lie in developing tools to facilitate the creation, maintenance, and interoperability of language documentation corpora. In his role as a ‘proper’ linguist, he has mostly worked with Dëné Sųłıné. Ruben spends his free time hibernating, trying to explain linguistics to his friends (and failing), or diving into ethnolinguistic music archives.

Other Professionals

Erin McGarvey – Partnership Administrative Assistant

Erin is a graduate student pursuing her MSc in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Alberta.  She holds a BA in Linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. For her master’s thesis she is doing ethnographic research on a summer language program for the Unangax Language on St. Paul Island, Alaska that uses the Where Are Your Keys? method of language learning.   Her other research interests include linguistic anthropology, historical linguistics, language documentation, and lexicography. 

Eddie Santos – NRC Application Software Developer

Eddie is a software developer with the National Research Council of Canada that is embedded here in the ALT Lab.  Eddie holds both a BSc and MSc in Computing Science from the University of Alberta. Eddie’s research focused on how natural language processing tools can be leveraged to work on source code and software engineering artifacts.

Jolene Poulin – Software Developer

Jolene recently graduated with her BSc in Computing Science from the University of Alberta and joined ALTLab as a Software Developer. She is largely focused on recording extraction, validation, and speech synthesis, helping to bring a larger number of accurate recordings to the services offered by ALTLab and the 21st Century Tools for Indigenous Languages Partnership. Jolene values her work as it helps her connect with her Métis heritage and puts her natural language skills to good use. In her free time, Jolene enjoys knitting, roller skating, and hanging out with awesome dogs.

Michaela Stang – Partnership Administrative Assistant

Michaela was the acting Administrative Assistant for the Partnership. She holds a MLIS and a BA in Linguistics and Anthropology, both from the University of Alberta. Over the course of her degrees, she has had a number of student, volunteer, and professional positions at the UofA, including research assistantships in Linguistics and Digital Humanities, volunteer program assistant with CILLDI, public service assistantships with the University of Alberta Libraries, and many student committee executive roles.