Tag Archives: Linguistics

Iris Kim ’26: Sign Language Research and Accessibility! 

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Name: Iris Kim
Class Year: 2026
Major: Linguistics
Minor: Chinese
 
Internship Organization:  Swarthmore College
Internship Title:   Research Assistant
Location:  Philadelphia, PA
 
What’s happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!  

Hi! I’m Iris Kim, a rising senior at Bryn Mawr majoring in linguistics. This summer, I interned at Swarthmore College under Professor Donna Jo Napoli, working on two of her ongoing projects: her nonprofit RISE and her academic research on sign language phonology. One of my favorite projects this summer was writing a Python program to help organize and store sign language data for future analysis. Sign language dictionaries rely on video and image content rather than text, which can make digital storage and research tricky. Using skills I learned through Bryn Mawr’s Computer Science department, I designed a tool that I hope will be useful to other linguists studying sign language.
 
Why did you apply for this internship?  

I found the opportunity through the Tri-College Consortium’s linguistics email list—a resource that supports community and shares professional opportunities across the Tri-Co linguistics program. (Learn more about Bryn Mawr’s program here: https://www.brynmawr.edu/academics/majors-minors-and-concentrations/linguistics.) I applied hoping to get firsthand experience in applied linguistics research, since most of my experience thus far has been with theoretical linguistics. I wanted to help people, and learn what it looks like to help people from within academia.

Was this internship what you expected it to be?

Not really, but I don’t mind! At first, I thought my role would focus solely on producing bimodal video-books for RISE—videos that combine a written language with a sign language, created in partnership with deaf schools around the world. I was hired to help edit graphics and video materials. But on my first day, Donna Jo explained that RISE’s workflow depends on outreach cycles; sometimes multiple schools want to collaborate, and other times things are quieter. I worried that the summer might be slower than expected—but Donna Jo assured me there would always be meaningful work to do. And while we didn’t receive new partner requests this summer, I’ve been deeply involved in outreach efforts and have assisted in her academic research on sign language. This array of projects gave me a look into Donna Jo’s career, giving me more experience with the field as a whole than I had expected. 

Can you talk about the skills you are learning and why they are important to you? 

Over this summer, I have practiced the skills of computer programming, data analysis, and research– specifically in the area of designing studies. This internship has clarified for me where in these areas I am strong, and where I can seek more education in. But it also turned out to be more than a skills-building opportunity. I came in expecting rigid deadlines and clearly defined tasks. Instead, I found a flexible environment where creativity, problem-solving, and forward thinking were not only encouraged but expected. I have watched as Donna Jo made decisions about what steps to take in her work to best contribute to her academic field, help deaf children, and prepare RISE for future endeavors. She has given me room to ask questions, contribute ideas, and shape the direction of our work together. I look forward to applying this adaptive workflow in future endeavors. 

Ayla Conn ’27 Spends Summer Interning with FORA

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Name: Ayla Conn
Class Year: 2027
Major:   International Studies
Minor: Spanish, Linguistics
 
Internship Organization:  FORA
Internship Title:   Administrative Restorative Justice Intern
Location:  Chicago, IL
 
What’s happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!  

What does a day in your internship look like? Forging Opportunities for Refugees in America, or FORA, is a nonprofit located in the heart of the community it serves, a thriving immigrant neighborhood in Northern Chicago. They’ve grown from working with 12 students to nearly 120, providing “High-Impact Tutoring” (HIT) to K-12 refugee students to support their adjustment into Chicago schools and ensure they feel caught up to grade level. As an Administrative Intern, my typical day at work is dynamic—it starts with two 2-hour tutoring sessions, where I work one-on-one with students on math facts and reading fluency. HIT activities might look like warming up with math games, talking through problems in a workbook, or reading a book out loud, pausing for comprehension questions and to sound out new words on a whiteboard. With up to 80 students in the building at a time, the room is always full of energy, from the start of the day at 9:00 until students start to trickle out at 1:30. Then, in the afternoons, the interns stick around to help FORA staff with a variety of projects. I’ve gotten to work directly with several members of staff, including our managing director, to support our budding summer speaker series, coordinate and advertise community events, research new solutions to keep our data organized, and more!

Why did you apply for this internship?  

Why did you apply for this internship? I grew up in the Chicago area, so I was excited by the opportunity to return home to work at an incredible organization located just 15 minutes from my front door. I’ve worked in a handful of tutoring-adjacent jobs on campus, including in the Writing Center and as a language TA, and I hoped to expand those skills while making an impact in a new environment. I also wanted to learn more about how a small, community-driven organization like FORA works behind the scenes.
 
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced at your internship? 

The adjustment from tutoring undergraduates to working with 7-year-olds! The students at FORA are all such hard workers, whether they’re in first grade or rising highschoolers, but working with kids presents a distinct set of challenges that has been a learning curve for me—especially during the summer, when most of them would rather be spending a day relaxing at the beach than wrapping up their subtraction workbook. Just over halfway into my time here, I am starting to feel confident in the strategies I’ve developed to keep different types of learners engaged, and I know I have learned as much from the students as I teach!  

What is most rewarding about your internship? 

The most rewarding part of working at FORA that I could not have expected is the extent to which I’ve felt able to make an impact. Being involved in a student’s “aha!” moment and seeing how they grow over the course of the 8-week summer semester is incredibly valuable. In particular, I’ve been consistently working with one rising sixth grader who was new to FORA this summer. Seeing her accomplish such amazing academic goals, like completing two levels on our math app and finishing a chapter book in the first few weeks alone, in addition to making connections with other students and tutors, has been such a privilege to witness. Our summer speaker series has also been such a fun surprise, as I’ve learned about the career trajectories of a wide range of FORA and Chicagoland community members, from local politicians and business owners to board members and former tutors, and had the opportunity to be in contact with many of these speakers to coordinate their visits. 

Elizabeth Bailey ’27: Research Assistant Working with Belize Kriol and 20th Century Poetry 

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Name: Elizabeth Bailey
Class Year: 2027
Major: Linguistics, Classical Culture & Society
 
Internship Organization: Swarthmore College
Internship Title:   “Language, Culture and History: Belize in a Digital Age” and “Creole Poetics & Subject-Formation in 20th Century Belize”
Location: Remote

What’s happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!  

I’m working remotely as a research assistant with a transnational team on a collaborative project coordinated by Prof. Fuller Medina, of Swarthmore College, and Prof. Christopher DeShield, of the University of Belize. It brings together two projects on poetry and the social history of Belize Kriol, with the aim of creating an open-access digital archive of 20th century written Belize Kriol in poetry found in newspapers from Belize, which are currently located in the Belize Archives and Records Service. My tasks include running and manually correcting OCR of scanned text and conducting bibliographic research. I also work with metadata for the texts and assist with organizing the information to make it easier to work with.

Why did you apply for this internship?  

I am a linguistics student, so I was excited to find an opportunity relating to language. I also sought a position that would help me improve my research skills and that would give me a chance to work with professional academic linguists. 

What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn’t expect? 

I knew that I should expect to work on the computer, since it is a remote position, and I knew that I might have to learn new programs and systems in order to complete my work. However, I hadn’t quite prepared myself for the process of learning these systems. It made me confront how often I choose to do a task the longer or less efficient way to avoid having to navigate an unfamiliar computer tool. Being required to use new programs gave me the motivation to get over my wariness. I’e been making good use now of Bryn Mawr’s access to Zotero and Adobe Acrobat, and I’m surprised at how much less confusing they have ended up being compared with my expectations. 

Working remotely for the first time? What has that experience been like for you?

One thing that working remotely has taught me is that there is definitely a time and a place for a long, detailed, specific email. After years of school training me out of being into a very condensed, punchy style, I’m finding that my somewhat-forgotten skills in making sure I leave no stone unturned are useful again. It’s important to maintain good written communication when working remotely, and this includes a lot of detailed emailing to clarify details of assignments and provide updates for ongoing tasks. You have to remember not to leave out a detail that you perceive as unimportant, but that everyone else involved actually needed to know. Online meetings have also been very important, and a year of remote school during the pandemic definitely helped prepare me for the slight awkwardness of talking to a person’s face when that person isn’t actually in front of you.