Former Members

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2018 – Spring 2021

BA in Linguistics and German (UT Austin)

Abigail studied German with her father from the age of 15, having gained an interest in German while growing up near New Braunfels, Boerne, Seguin, and other surrounding areas with German heritage. She interned at the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages in 2021, using the same tools I learned to use with the TGDP (Audacity and ELAN) to assist with their Sora language project. She currently works for a German educational company called StudySmarter as a content creator and is pursuing an MA in Linguistics at UNC Chapel Hill (class of 2024).

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2024

Annika Bienmüller was a junior exchange student from the University of Würzburg. As a psychology major, she is especially interested in the way language and culture interact and inform one another. After finishing her degree, she wants to become a therapist.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2023

Samira Bopp was a junior during her exchange semester at UT Austin. She is from Germany and studies teaching for the subjects English and PE at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität in Würzburg.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2019 – Spring 2020

MA in Germanic Studies (UT Austin)

When “Jin” was a graduate student, her areas of interest included contrastive linguistics, syntax, semantics, stylistics, linguistic analysis of literature, narrative, and discourse analysis. A native of South Korea, Jin became interested in documenting endangered languages, as she watched the documentary film “The Linguists.” She is now working as a natural language processing linguist, contributing to projects requested by a tech company.

Active with the TGDP: Spring and Summer 2009

M.Ed. and Teaching degree (secondary education) for English and Spanish (The Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg), MA in English Linguistics, American Studies, and Spanish (The Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg)

Tanja Baeuerlein attended UT as an exchange student from 2009-2010. In her first semester at UT, she took a class about Texas German with Hans Boas, which immediately sparked her interest in this dialect, its history and features. Her other interests include traveling, reading, arts, languages, movies, music, as well as cooking and spending time with her family and friends.

Tanja has been a Latin teacher at BASIS San Antonio Medical Center, a German teacher at Smithson Valley High School (Spring Branch, TX), an English and Spanish teacher at Siebold Gymnasium Würzburg, and an English and Spanish teacher at Schönborn Gymnasium Münnerstadt and Berufliche Oberschule (FOS/BOS), Würzburg, Germany.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2019 – Summer 2021

BA in Linguistics and German (UT Austin)

Maria began studying German her freshman year of college, and fell in love with the language and culture after her first introductory course. She has had an interest in the preservation and documentation of endangered languages since an early age and when she learned about the TGDP, she was eager to join. She is currently a Content Writer Intern at Affirma Consulting.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2012

PhD in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), BA (Pacific Lutheran University)

Collin’s main areas of research include phonology, morphology, language contact situations and the historical development of Germanic languages. In addition, he is interested in the documentation and revitalization of threatened languages. Collin is also excited to be able to document Kinamigin, an endangered language of the Philippines.

Since graduating from UT Austin, Collin has been a Visiting Professor at Pacific Lutheran University, a Visiting Professor at Oklahoma State University, a Visiting Professor at Old Dominion University, and a Lecturer at Washburn University.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2006-2008

JD in International Lay (Brooklyn Law School), BA in German (UT Austin)

While at UT, Erin was a DJ on “Es klingt wie Deutsch,” the university’s weekly German radio program on KVRX. After graduating from UT, Erin went to law school, then entered a German PhD program but joined foreign service before finishing. She now works for the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) in the Agricultural Trade Office at the US Embassy in Beijing, China.

Active with the TGDP: Summer 2022

MA in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), BA in World Languages, Literature, and Linguistics (West Virginia University)

Alessandra (Sascha) Daniels joined the Germanic Studies department at UT Austin in 2020. She is a three-time U.S. State Department alum, having received the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship to study abroad in Japan in 2016, as well as the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) scholarship to study in Germany in 2011 and the Fulbright US Student English Teaching Assistant award to teach at the Grashof Gymnasium in Essen, Germany in 2018. Daniels’ research at UT Austin focused on the influence of African diasporic communities on German culture along with Afro-German poetry, Afro-German film, and the contemporary culture of Afro-German youth. They served as the secretary of the Black Graduate Student Association at UT Austin, and is also an active member of the Fulbright alumni community as the co-chair and communications and outreach officer of Fulbright Noir.

Daniels is currently enrolled in the PhD Program at Duke/UNC-Chapel Hill.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2023 – Spring 2024

BA in Linguistics (McGill University)

Anna de la Fuente is a native Austinite who is deeply passionate about the intersection of language and culture. In 2023, she graduated with a major in Linguistics and a minor in German from McGill University in Montréal, Canada. During her time at McGill, she delved into the intricate world of linguistic analysis, where she conducted undergraduate research focusing on sociolinguistic factors influencing words with variable gender in the German language, and the complexities of verb suppletion within the Na-Dené language family. Anna’s journey with the German language began in 2014, and her affection for it has only grown stronger with time. Her commitment to linguistic research and her insatiable curiosity have taken her from the United States to Canada, Sweden, Germany, and France.

Active with the TGDP: 2013-2022

Stellar holds a double B.A. in Linguistics and Religious Studies from Pomona College, and came to the TGDP in 2013 with several years of linguistics research under their belt. While an undergraduate, they spent a semester living and traveling in India, Nepal and Tibet, where they researched the relationships and roles of Tibetan, Hindi and English in the Tibetan exile community of Dharamsala. Back in the States, their senior thesis research focused on the phonetics and phonology of falling tones in Luganda, a Bantu language spoken in Uganda. After a few years in Northern California post-graduation, they moved to Austin in 2012 to pursue their dream of music, and have released albums both as a solo artist and with their band The Seventh String. They also organize with Austin activists, write contemplative poetry, take a long view of history, and write and sing songs of liberation, healing and joy.

stellar@stellarsings.com

Active with the TGDP: Around 2004

PhD in Linguistics (phonetics and linguistic theory) (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), BA in German Language and Literature (Jawaharlal Nehru Vishvavidyalaya, New Delhi, India)

Indranil’s research focuses on acoustic phonetics, phonology, speech technology and historical linguistics. While working with the TGDP, he investigated the phonetic basis of substrate effects in Texas German. After his time with the TGDP, Indranil was a Lecturer at Rice University, and then an Assistant Professor at the English and Foreign Languages University in India. As of 2020, he is a Professor of Linguistics at Jadavpur University.

PhD in Germanic Studies (UT Austin)

Ryan Dux graduated with his Ph.D. in Germanic Studies at UT Austin in May 2016. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, where he was introduced to the study of German dialects in America. The topic is of special importance to him because his grandparents understood German in their youth but did not grow up to speak the language and pass it on. He is interested in both the socio-cultural aspects of Texas German as well as linguistic matters such as grammatical change and the influence of the English language. Ryan’s other interests include language pedagogy, syntax and semantics and older Germanic languages. During the 2016-17 Academic Year, Ryan was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bucknell University, during the 2017-2018 Academic Year Ryan held a prestigious Mellon-Volkswagen Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim, Germany. In August 2018, Ryan started as Assistant Professor of German at Sam Houston State University.

http://ryandux.weebly.com/

Active with the TGDP: 2004-2005

MA in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), BA in German/Management Studies (University of Leeds, UK)

When working with the TGDP, Karen was interested in the language and identity among the Wends of Texas. She thinks this research is very important as it is a way of providing current and future generations with an idea of what life is like for Americans who have experience with a culture other than the dominant one and who grow up speaking languages other than English.

Karen is currently a Lecturer in the Germanic Studies Department at UT Austin.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2004

MS in Computer Science (UT Austin), BS in Computer Science (UT Austin)

Mohamed Fakhreddine was born in Lebanon and has survived electrocution, aerial bombardment and a falling satellite dish just to be here. His interests include artificial intelligence and robotics. Since his time at UT, Mohamed has been a software engineer at Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2008

MA in North American Studies (Friedrich Schiller University Jena), BA in English and History (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)

Most of Raphael’s hobbies have something to do with music; he plays guitar and likes to listen to music and go to concerts. Other hobbies include enjoying living in Weimar, movies, reading, learning languages and about history. Since 2014, he has been a consultant with PONS Atlantic Partners GmbH in Berlin, Germany.

Active with the TGDP: 2013-2017

PhD in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), MA (University of Cologne, Germany)

Apart from his interest in contact linguistics, Matthias is enthralled by historical linguistics and the history of linguistics itself as well as standardization and variation in language. After graduating with his PhD from UT Austin in 2017, he started a postdoctoral position in the German Department at the University of Vienna, Austria. After earning a second Masters in information science, Matthias now works in data management.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2003-2005

PhD from the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures (UNC-Chapel Hill), MA in German Literature (UNC-Chapel Hill), BA in History and German (UT Austin)

After receiving his PhD in 2013, Alex joined the Department of Germanic Studies as a lecturer. Since 2014, he has been an Assistant Professor of post-war German literature. His work centers on a wide array of intersections between literature, culture, and theory and has also moved into other forms of media. He has published for instance on photography and new literary ethnographic practices; Postcolonialism and neoliberalism; the transnational connections of musical cultures, practices, and public spheres; and post-‘68 reevaluations of Marxism, futurology, and other science fictions.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2024

Austin is a Government & German major in the Liberal Arts Honors Program. Outside of TGDP, he is the Vice President of Texas Political Consulting—a student organization dedicated to supporting non-profits and campaigns. Austin is passionate about transportation policy and its intersection with urban planning.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2013-2014

PhD in Germanic Studies (UT Austin)

Maggie’s research interests include all kinds of linguistic variation, particularly register variation and figurative language. Her dissertation dealt with a frame-semantic analysis of metaphor using data from German newspaper texts. Teaching German is another of her main interests, so she is always looking for new and engaging ways to introduce students to language variation. At home, she spends her time sewing and creating poetry and art.

Maggie has been an Instructor of German at Southern Oregon University (SOU) (2016-2020), the Chair of International Studies Program at SOU (2019), and an Assistant Professor of Instruction at UT at Austin (2020-2022).

Active with the TGDP: Summer 2022

Rebecca Galloway is a rising senior studying linguistics at Barnard College of Columbia University. After graduation, she hopes to enter graduate school and one day become a linguist and syntactician. A life-long Texan, Rebecca is excited to contribute to the research and preservation of the dialect her late great-grandmother grew up speaking and hearing.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2021 – Fall 2022

Simon is an undergraduate student from Houston, Texas completing a double major in Jewish Studies and German and a minor in History. His primary interests include World War II, the Holocaust, post-20th century Germany, and the weaponization of disinformation. He is currently an intern with the United States Department of State in the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. He is also a conversation partner with the UT German Department. Upon graduation, Simon hopes to study in Germany before beginning a career in public service.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2012

PhD in Health Data Science (Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin), AuD (Doctor of Audiology) (Towson University), MA in Germanic Studies (Arizona State University), BA in Germanic Studies (Arizona State University)

Jane was first introduced to code-switching as a mechanism of language contact at Arizona State University. During her time with the Germanic Studies Department at UT Austin, she was interested in exploring how the grammars of bilinguals interact and in what way this interaction may be accommodated within, and simultaneously inform theoretical frameworks. She sees the Texas German Dialect Project as a unique opportunity to study various contact phenomena, including language attrition, bilingualism, and code-switching. Jane hopes that efforts from this project will shed light on language maintenance strategies and dispel negative attitudes towards minority languages.

Jane has been working in the field of Audiology since 2015. As of 2020, she is a Clinical Research Operations Manager at Mimi Hearing Technologies in Berlin, Germany.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2011

PhD in Germanic Studies (Linguistics) (UT Austin), MA in Germanic Studies (Linguistics) (UT Austin), MA in Teaching (Trinity University), BA in Economics (Trinity University), Handelsdiplom (Handelschule KV, Baselland, Switzerland)

Guido’s areas of interests are semantics, Swiss German, contrastive linguistics and second language acquisition. He has taught German, Economics, and Government in Texas. Guido now teaches German at the University of Pittsburgh. In his time off, Guido enjoys playing tennis, SCUBA diving, cooking, and traveling.

Active with the TGDP: October 2003-August 2006

MA in European Studies (Europa Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) & Istanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi), BA in Germanic Studies and Sociology (double major) (UT Austin)

Ryan’s interest in the Texas-Germans is rooted in language politics and their implications which, in this case, resulted in the gradual extinction of a vital part of the culture’s identity: its language. In addition to his academic pursuits, he also enjoys cooking, rooting succulents, the Recycling Task Force, and painting.

Ryan has worked as a an International Parliamentary Scholar (internship in the German parliament); a freelance English instructor, translator, editor; a staff member of Member of Parliament; and Project Consultat at Visa Express Service. Since 2013, Ryan has been working as a project manager and international officer for Tafel Deutschland e.V., a national association of German food banks and pantries.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2023 – Spring 2024

Simon was an exchange student from Würzburg, Germany. He is studying to become a teacher for English and Geography at the University of Würzburg. At UT Austin, he was taking courses in Linguistics, American Studies, and English.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2004

MA in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), BA in Radio and Television (UT Austin)

Jansen became interested in Texas German after learning German at UT Austin and then subsequently working at various English camps for German students in Europe, and experiencing the many different dialects there. He has been a lecturer at the University of Würzburg’s English and American Studies Department since 2007.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2019

BA in Linguistics (UT Austin)

Zach Holsinger is interested in historical linguistics, German history, phonology, and computational linguistics. He is a native of Houston, but moved to Palo Alto for high school. He enjoys board games, Model United Nations, and watching terrible movies. He is an identical twin. Zach works as a software developer at General Motors.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2006

MA in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), BScEcon in European Union Studies (University of Wales, Cardiff)

Kersten’s first encounter with Texas German was at the Vereinskirche museum in Fredricksburg, TX, where his conversation with a local native-speaker of German intrigued him. Kersten’s interest in German as a subject of study and intellectual inquiry dates back to his school days in Germany, where he was exposed to a great variety of German literary works.

Kersten has worked as a Assistant Teaching Professor of German at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, a German teacher at Lutheran High School South, St. Louis, MO, a Language and Internationalization Specialist (Cendant Intercultural), and since 2020, he has been the Director of Special Projects at Bilingual International Assistant Services.

In May 2016, David graduated with an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from UT Austin. He has ample experience in language documentation having worked at sites in Nepal, Mongolia, and Germany. David joined the Texas German Dialect Project to expand his understanding of language change in the context of immigration. His dissertation dealt with the opposite development of language death: with help of descriptive and experimental methods he explores social networks as well as morpho-syntactic and semantic change in immigrant neighborhoods in Germany in order to better identify speakers of newly emerging varieties of German. David is currently employed as a junior researcher at the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim, Germany.

Active with the TGDP: 2003

BA in German and Business (UT Austin)

Eric loves fishing, disc golf and other outdoor activities. His all encompassing interest in German stems from his first 3 years of learning the language in high school and his many visits to various German-speaking regions. He is interested in the many cultural differences between America and Germany.

Eric has been working in Hospitality since 2002, including roles such as Sales Manager, Event Manager, and Senior Director of Global Accounts. Since 2017, he is the Associate Regional Vice President at Lamont Associates.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2023

Atalia was a PhD student at the Department of Anthropology at UT Austin. Connecting queer and animal studies, she examines what kinds of bodily labor are enacted in the work of utopia –  specifically the kinds of queer fantasies that allow for animal labor. Her fieldwork is situated in kibbutzim in Israel/Palestine (where she is from) and in the outskirts of Berlin – which is how she got into studying German. Atalia has previously engaged with trans* temporality, queer kinships, cisgender identities and pinkwashing. She is excited to practice her German with the TGDP, as well as being exposed to the fascinating migratory history of Texas German communities.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2023

Kendal was a student at UT Austin who studied German and Psychology. She hopes to one day work on translating German Psychology academic journals.

BA in Linguistics (UT Austin)

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2024

Sonora is from Austin, Texas. She was a senior Linguistics major who was also pursuing a German certificate. She is interested in sociolinguistics and phonetics, along with Germanic languages. Additionally, she completed a summer semester abroad in Würzburg Germany.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2022 – Summer 2024

PhD in Linguistics (UT Austin), MA in Theoretical Linguistics (Humboldt University of Berlin), BA in German Linguistics and Spanish (Humboldt University of Berlin), German as a Foreign Language (comparable to BA) (University of Leipzig), Law Degree (comparable to JD) (Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University)

Ekaterina’s primary research interests are semantics and its interface with pragmatics and syntax. Her doctoral research concerned external possessives in German. Specifically, Katja is interested in the composition of their meaning, the meaning of their parts, and the encoding of possessive relationships.

As of 2024, Katja is working as a Postdoc at the University of Vienna.

https://katjalevina.com

Active with the TGDP: 2007, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2017

PhD in Linguistics (Yale University), BA in Linguistics (Pomona College)

He is a native Austinite and grandson of a Texas-German speaker, and he is interested in phonology, heritage languages and dialects, and education. He returned to Austin from a Fulbright teaching scholarship in Nepal in 2011 and was the Language Coordinator at the Multicultural Refugee Coalition, where he helped with education and training programs for refugees who had settled in Austin. He also plays New Orleans-style blues piano.

As of 2021, Luke is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the George Washington University Medical School Advanced Metrics Laboratory.

lukelindemann.com

Active with the TGDP: Around 2005

BA in French and German (UT Austin), MA in Applied Women’s Studies (Claremont Graduate University)

Jenny Ljungqvist is a foreign language nerd who took Swedish in her first year at UT and wants to learn Italian, Spanish, Finnish, etc. She taught French at Dallas ISD and currently teaches French at Catholic Memorial High School. She also enjoys music, movies and playing poker.

Active with the TGDP: 2017-2018

PhD in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), MA in Modern Languages (University of Mississippi)

Alexander is interested in the phonological and morphological developments of languages in contact and their documentation. His second area of study is Second Language Acquisition, where he focuses on Input in Grammar Instruction. In August 2018, he started as Assistant Professor of German at the University of South Carolina (Upstate).

Active with the TGDP: Summer 2022

Clara is a rising Junior at Colorado College studying Russian, anthropology, and music. Her other interests include choir, rugby, and craft beer. Originally from San Jose, CA, Clara has been coming to the hill country every summer since she was 2 to visit family in Wimberley, TX. It was during her hill country summers when she first heard the Texas German dialect and many stories from her grandfather about classmates who spoke it when he was growing up in San Marcos. Although Clara is committed to studying Russian for her undergraduate degree, her true passion is socio-cultural and linguistic anthropology and can see herself staying within the realm of research in the future, which is why working with the TGDP has been an incredible introduction into the field.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2023 – Spring 2024

Elisabeth Mathis studied International Relations and Global Studies at UT Austin. She is originally from Austria and acquired German there, but has lived in Norway and the US for the majority of her life. After starting at UT, Elisabeth was intrigued by German culture and literature, and pursued a certificate in German.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2001-2003

BA in Management Information Systems (UT Austin)

Until the summer of 2003, Erik was a MIS student in the UT McCombs School of Business. Since he graduated, he founded his own business (see: www.silenttimer.com). In February 2002, he designed and implemented the TGDP pilot website as well as well as its pilot database. Then, he managed the TGDP data architecture in addition to its web site design and interface. Erik’s areas of interest include data base structures, data normalization, programming, web design, graphics design, networking, and languages (French & Norwegian). His non-academic interests include playing soccer, writing and recording music and traveling.

Erik is currently the CEO of Texas-based Genemco.

Active with the TGDP: 2002-2004

BA in Germanic Studies (UT Austin)

Cheryl was double majoring in German and Linguistics at UT Austin, and her BA honors thesis was titled “Phonological Developments in New Braunfels German.” Her areas of interest included phonetics, phonology and language acquisition. As a native Texan whose family immigrated to Texas from Germany and spoke fluent German until two generations ago, she feels strongly about the importance of studying and preserving Texas German. Her outside interests include piano performance, painting, and drawing. She currently lives in Austin, works in software as a User Interface Designer and most recently as a Lead Project Designer, and she’s a mom.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2023 – Spring 2024

Emma Morrow was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and has lived all over the United States, including New Braunfels and Austin. Emma is studying Linguistics and pursuing a double major in German at UT Austin. She started learning German when she was a freshman in high school and she’s been steadily learning it ever since. She hopes to study abroad one day to improve her German through one of UT’s study abroad programs. Her primary interests include languages and how they affect people and culture, anthropology, environmental science, and literature. After graduation, she hopes to attend grad school and continue to study language and culture in order to help others.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2020

BA in German and Marketing (double major) (UT Austin)

Mia started taking German classes in high school and decided to continue pursuing her passion for the language at UT after participating in a life-changing exchange trip to Amberg, Germany. She became interested in the TGDP after learning about the project through an intro to linguistics course taught by Dr. Marc Pierce. While at UT Austin, she was also involved in the Germanic Studies Department as the president of Delta Phi Alpha German Honors Society, DJ and co-host of the German radio show Es Klingt Wie Deutsch, and as an officer for the German club.

Mia interned abroad in Berlin during summer 2022 for Bertelsmann Music Group, the 4th largest music publishing company globally, before graduating in December 2022.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2002

PhD in Germanic Studies (UT Austin)

During her time with the TGDP, Tina was interested in language acquisition and how multimedia can be used as a tool for scholars and learners. Since then, she has been the Language Learning Manager, Assistant Director (Faculty Support and Academic Technology), Senior Director (Teaching and Learning Technologies), and is currently the Assistant at Case Western Reserve University. Tina spends her spare time enjoying outdoor activities.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2021 – Fall 2022

Grant Owens is a former undergraduate student at UT double majoring in International Relations and Global Studies and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. He began learning German while studying at UT, and has since fallen in love with the language. In 2021 he studied German at the Middlebury Language Schools, which boosted his interest in the language. Originally from San Antonio, Grant has known about Texas German from a young age, but first became interested in it after studying German in the classroom. Outside of TGDP, Grant is a section leader in the Longhorn Band and is very involved with other ensembles on campus throughout the year. Grant is very excited to be working with the TGDP team and he looks forward to enriching his knowledge of Texas German through this project!

ghowens@utexas.edu

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2023

Sarah was studying Economics and German. She began learning the language in high school, but her interest grew in college. Sarah participated in the Würzburg Summer Program through the UT German Department. She hopes to work or study in Germany after finishing her undergraduate degree.

Active with the TGDP: Spring2023

Caroline is a PhD candidate in the department of German Linguistics at the TU Dortmund, Germany. Her primary research interests are language contact and language change, (morpho)syntactic variation, dialectology and extraterritorial varieties of German. Her doctoral research concerns a comparison of syntactic variation in sentence linkage in different extraterritorial varieties of German, namely German in Chile, Namibia, Russia and Texas.

Caroline received her B.A. in Applied Linguistics and German Studies in 2015 from the University of Cologne and her M.A. in Linguistics in 2019 from the University of Bielefeld, with a focus on Mayan languages. She has ample experience in language documentation having worked in Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Chile and Germany. She is also the founder of the Network for German Language Minority Research (Netzwerk für deutsche Sprachminderheitenforschung), which aims to connect early career researchers working on similar topics in the field of extraterritorial varieties of German. During her time at the TGDP she is conducting a questionnaire-based-survey with speakers of the Texas German Dialect as part of her dissertation.

Active with the TGDP: Summer 2017, Summer 2018

PhD in Journalism (UT Austin), MA in media management (Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media), MA in social sciences (Humboldt University of Berlin), BA in journalism and media management (FH Wien University of Applied Sciences, Vienna)

While at Texas, Martin developed an interest in the Texas German language and culture. A native of Austria, Martin has a deep appreciation for German dialects – he was born and raised speaking Mittelbairisch – and he is an experienced interviewer and fieldworker. His research interests include online political participation and news engagement, reader comments and moderation, the sociology of news work, new media technologies, and social media.

Martin is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at Austin.

Active with the TGDP: 2008-2009

MEd (Liberty University), BA in Spanish and German (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire)

Ashley is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since 2018, Ashley has been a German and Spanish teacher at Spring Branch ISD, Tomball ISD, and Cypress-Fairbanks ISD.

Active with the TGDP: Either Fall 2014 or Spring 2015

BA in Germanic Studies and Anthropology (double major) (UT Austin)

John Henry Roenigk’s interest in acquiring German as a second language was spurred in 2009 during a gap year, at which point he took on various jobs working for a wine estate in the Mosel valley close to the historic city of Trier in the western part of Germany. After graduating, he was a US Teaching Assistant in Austria through Fulbright Austria, and worked for Accenture LLP.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2006-2008

BA in English and German (UT Austin)

Leo is interested in all things language-related, and wants to learn far too many new languages – spoken ones and dead ones. Working on the TGDP could not have made any other person happier. Following his time with the TGDP, Leo has worked as an auto tech, produce manager, and a massage therapist – none of which made direct use of his degree/majors, but he enjoyed being able to put both his hands and his mind to work. Recently, he started transitioning into working for himself, teaching ESL online.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2005-2006

BA in Linguistics and BS in Biochemistry (UT Austin)

After Jim graduated from UT Austin in 2006 (his honors thesis was titled “Some Developments in the Texas German Case System”), he joined the Peace Corps and served in the lovely Republic of Benin as an English teacher at first, and later as a regional supervisor. He later returned to UT to study biochemistry. He has also worked part-time as a software engineer in downtown Austin, customizing business software.

As of 2022, Jim is perusing a Biochemistry PhD at UT Austin and is a PhD Candidate in the Finkelstein Lab.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2022 – Fall 2023

Verena Sauer is a Feodor Lynen fellow (funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) from Germany and has a PhD in Germanic Studies with an interest in minority languages, perceptual dialectology, and Frame Semantics. Her postdoc project focused on historic Frame Semantics. She analyzed language attitudes of authors from the 16th to 18th centuries and reconstructed their knowledge of the term High German within semantic frames.

Her research for the TGDP is about speech attitudes of Texas Germans towards Hochdeutsch (Standard German), i.e., what is associated with the term, what knowledge is available, how Hochdeutsch differs  from Texas German as perceived by interviewees.

Active with the TGDP: 2014-2018

Master of International Affairs (Hertie School, Berlin), BA in International Relations & Global Studies and German (double major) (UT Austin)

Sandy grew up in a bilingual household – her mother is German and her father is American, but also fluent in German. Growing up, she spent most summers in Germany visiting her grandparents, and occasionally attending Gymnasium with friends. She has worked as a program assistant at Aspen Institute Germany, a program assistant at Körber Foundation, and is currently a public sector consultant Cassini Consulting.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2023 – Spring 2024

Robert studied Economics and German at UT Austin. He had been learning German on-and-off since middle school, and became more dedicated to learning the language after studying it in college. He participated in the Würzburg Program in Summer 2023 in order to explore Europe, and gain control of the language.

Active with the TGDP: Summer 2023

Sammy studied linguistics at UT Austin, with a particular emphasis on historical linguistics, comparative linguistics and philology. He hopes to devote his life to the documentation and revival of endangered languages.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2002-2003

BS in Mathematics (UT Austin), BA in German Language and Literatures (UT Austin)

When Jarrod was with the TGDP, he was mostly interested in the theoretical side of math, including such topics as algebraic number theory and topology, and tended to shy away from applied math. His hobbies include playing guitar and biking around Town Lake as much as possible. Jarrod became interested in learning more about Texas German and German communities in Texas after traveling a bit in the spring of 2002 through eastern Europe and visiting the old German colonies of Siebenburgen in what is now Romania. He has been working at National Instruments since 2005, most recently as a Systems R&D Director.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2004

PhD in Germanic Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), MA in Germanic Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Master of Library & Information Science (MLIS) (UT Austin), BA in English Literature and Germanic Studies (University of Colorado at Boulder)

After obtaining her PhD, Kathleen worked at the State and University Library in Goettingen, Germany, until I came to my present position as the curator for Germanic Studies at Stanford University in 2014.

Active with the TGDP: Summer 2017

BA in Linguistics and German (double major) (University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee)

During Melanie’s time with the TGDP, she was under the direction of Damir Cavar at the University of Indiana, Bloomington. She was first interested in learning German because of the strong German influence in Wisconsin, and from attending Milwaukee’s annual German Fest. In her free time, Melanie enjoys playing the piano, baking, and visiting museums.

Directly after her summer internship with TGDP, Melanie was a undergraduate research assistant at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, where she worked with Dr. Garry Davis on a project about the dialect spoken in Wermelskirchen, Germany. Since then, she has changed career paths and is currently enrolled in a Masters in Library Science program.

Active with the TGDP: Around 2019-2020

BA in English (UT Austin)

While at UT, in addition to their BA in English, Audrey (they/them) also obtained minors in Linguistics, European Studies, and German, with a BDP certificate in Museum Studies.

Audrey’s research interests include second language acquisition in adults, children’s code-switching in multilingual households, and a specialization in comparative German-American literature and cultural perspectives, which they studied in Germany during a summer semester abroad at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg in 2017. As of 2018, Audrey is a senior retail sales specialist at Blue Elephant Boutique. In their free time, Audrey can be found knitting, begging the weather to get colder, planning trips to Germany, and searching for the perfect cup of coffee.

Active with TGDP: Fall 2002–Summer 2003

PhD in Germanic Studies (UT Austin)

After receiving his PhD, John accepted a position as lecturer at the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, University of Heidelberg, Germany. Since then, he has continued to teach translation studies at Heidelberg University and conduct research in Germanic linguistics. Inspired by his experiences with the TGDP among other things, he has branched out from his dissertation research topic of second language acquisition to do work on areal and contact linguistics, interlingual transfer and interference, and immigrant languages, contributing to the Eurolinguistics research program launched by Professor Sture Ureland of Mannheim, Germany.

Since 2003, John has been a Lecturer in Translation Studies, Heidelberg University, Germany.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2022 – Fall 2023

Trevor Tankersley, originally from Dallas Texas, is a student at UT Austin studying Linguistics and German. He began studying German after singing in Choirs, and being exposed to the language, and he began learning it in college. After graduation, he hopes to get a graduate degree in Linguistics and study lesser-known and endangered languages and dialects.

Active with the TGDP: September 2002 – August 2005

MPS in UX Design (Maryland Institute College of Art), MA in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), BS in Mathematics (UT Austin), BA in Anthropology (UT Austin)

Jana’s MA thesis was titled “Code-switching in Texas German.” After leaving UT in 2006, Jana has traveled extensively and worked on language documentation projects in Sierra Leone and Oaxaca. She has worked in many different areas, particularly within the realm of Artificial Intelligence, and as of 2022, is a Language Engineer at Amazon.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2022

Sebastian is enrolled at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, in the Bavarian State Exam Program for Teachers in Anglistic/American Studies and Geographie. He participated in a DAAD sponsored exchange program at the University of Texas at Austin (Fall Term 2021 and Spring Term 2022), where he was enrolled in an American Studies Major.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2023 – Summer 2024

BA in Government and Journalism (UT Austin)

Zoe Tzanis is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her primary interests include political philosophy, community-government relations, comparative politics, free speech, and global democracy. Zoe developed an early love for language learning from her Grandparents and extended family, from whom she learned Greek as a child. Zoe only began learning German in college but found the language learning experience to be equally, if not more rewarding as an adult. After spending the summer of 2022 at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg in Würzburg, Germany, Zoe returned to the States with the intention of finding outlets to further her German language skills in her community. As of 2024, Zoe is seeking a PhD in communications at the University of Pittsburgh.

Active with the TGDP: 2012-2016

PhD in Germanic Studies (UT Austin), MA (University of Kentucky), BA in translation and interpreting (University of Mainz, FASK Germersheim)

Her academic interests include second language acquisition, frame semantics and foreign language pedagogy. Her dissertation dealt with culturally specific aspects in semantic frames. When she was a teacher in the Germanic Studies department, she always developed new and engaging classroom materials, including developing several activities introducing students to Texas German. In her free time, Annika enjoys being outdoors and spending time with her dogs. As of 2019, she is the Senior Director of Learning and Change at Thrive Pet Healthcare.

Active with the TGDP: Spring 2019

Master in Management Science in Global Affairs (Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua Universit), BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering and BA in German (double major) (UT Austin)

Before joining the TGDP he studied abroad at the Technical University in Munich. He is currently pursuing his PhD at UCLA.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2020 – Summer 2024

Bradley Weiss received his M.A. from the Department of Germanic Studies at UT Austin. Originally from Kansas, he has a background in Classical Languages and Linguistics from his undergraduate studies at the University of Kansas, and studied German linguistics at the graduate level in South Korea before coming to UT in the Fall of 2019. His research interests include historical linguistics, multilingualism, speech island communities, and heritage languages. Before joining the TGDP as Graduate Research Assistant to manage the project in September 2020, Bradley conducted field work with speakers of Low German dialects in Iowa and Illinois, as well as with Korean speakers of German who migrated to Germany as guest workers in the 1960s and 1970s. Before joining the TGDP as a Graduate Research Assistant, Bradley helped conduct interviews with Texas German speakers as a TGDP volunteer.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2016 – Summer 2020

BA in English Literature and Linguistics (double major) (UT Austin)

Denise got involved with the TGDP as an undergraduate, as a way to feed her interest in dialect prestige, translation and phonetic transcription, and folk cultures. She enjoys focusing on Wendish/Sorbian speakers and their folktales, interactions of Texas German and African American English, and the effect of written materials on the standardization (or lack thereof) of Texas German. After graduating, Denise became an English teacher in the Czech Republic. In September 2019, she started graduate school at Indiana University, Bloomington, to further her research on non-standard speech, speech disorders, orality, and text. As an enthusiast on language documentation and folklore documentation, she is excited to connect her experience with these projects to her literary scholarship.

Active with the TGDP: October 2018 – February 2020

BA in History (UT Austin)

Nicholas has a keen interest in German history and language and studied German for the duration of his college career. A native of Houston, he enjoys reading, playing golf, working out, and following Houston sports. He enjoyed having an active leadership role in his fraternity and is a dedicated Texas Longhorn. After graduating, Nicholas worked for Lubel Voyles LLP (a plaintiff’s firm in Houston, TX) and is currently attending UT Law School.

Active with the TGDP: 2004

BA in Computer Science (UT Austin)

John Wiggins wrote the original software the TGDP used to transform transcription files into web pages for easy viewing on the TGDP website. As of 2022, he is still working as a programmer in industry, living in a German-speaking country. When not sitting in front of a computer, John enjoys riding his bike all and cooking.

Active with the TGDP: Fall 2021 – Fall 2022

Samantha Woolard is from Raleigh, North Carolina. She is double majoring in International Relations and Global Studies and German and minoring in International Business and German, Scandinavian, and Dutch Studies. Before coming to UT, she took a gap year in Berlin, Germany to study German. Here at UT, she is involved in the Texas Economics Association and the Germanic Department’s German Outreach Program where she teach German to sixth graders. She hopes to pursue a career in environmental law after graduation, and would like to live in Germany again. She is very excited to work at TGDP and to learn about the Texas German dialect!

sewoolard@utexas.edu