Skills and what I think of them
I always find it extremely hard to present a list and description of my skills. On the one hand, you do not want to forget something essential, on the other you do not want to just list anything that comes to mind but concentrate on your key skills. Also, I am wondering about the inflational use of some skills - is there any person in the world who would not state that they are team players or quick learners? That being said, below you find a description of my skills, including my statement that I am great team player and a very quick learner.
Linguistics
For 6 years (until 2019), my life revolved around linguistic questions. In my PhD-thesis, I investigated the interface between morphology, phonology and phonetics. In plain words, I looked at the pronunciation of words to find out how our brain processes and stores them.
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Linguistic Annoations (e.g. Part of Speech, Thematic Roles, Morphological Structure)
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Phonetic Transcriptions
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Acoustic Analyses (e.g. Spectral Analyses)
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Expert knowledge of morpho-phonological theory, models of the mental lexicon and speech processing
Data Science
When I started my PhD, I did not know anything about data science. Now, I know a lot.
When I started to work with large amounts of data for the empirical part of my thesis, I discovered that programming can make your life so much easier, and on top of it, it is fun! I started out by taking introductory classes in R and Python, and with the help of awesome colleagues and google, I improved my skills step by step.
I wrote code to
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retrieve and filter data from data bases
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generate texts and presentations
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clean and transform data
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filter, generate and order files
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read out acoustic data files
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statistically analyze data using supervised and unsupervised methods
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visualize data
I mostly worked with Python (NumPy, Pandas, RegEx, TextGrid) and R, but also have coded in Praat, and used SQL.
I have built on and added on to these skills during the last 5 years by applying them to real world problems in the idustry.
Research
I am a researcher at heart, and believe that this transcends to many areas of my work life. The following is a (probably) non-exhaustive list of skills relating to me as a researcher.
observing and identifying problems
finding explanations and building falsifiable hypotheses
analytical thinking
designing experiments
collecting and coding data
survey studies
quantitative analyses
regression models, cluster analyses, c-trees, cluster analyses
data visualization
data interpretation
Education
Education is what I know best. As you might have read in the experience section of this website, I have extensive teaching experience, have a masters in educational sciences, and am very engaged in the topic. Below you find some key aspects of my teaching philosophy.
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Transparency: Always be clear in what is expected.
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Prepare: This includes research on content and the learners, setting goals, getting or creating appropriate material, choosing the right tasks..
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Engage: Only if you are engaged, you can expect your students to be.
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Flexibility: Don't be afraid to change plans if something does not work out.
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Meaning: I believe that learning, and doing something per se, is much easier when you know what you are doing it for. So, I always try to convey the meaning of tasks.
Soft Skills
I am a great team player and a very quick learner, and I mean it. During my time at the HHU Düsseldorf, I have successfully worked in different teams with great outcomes. In the Research Unit Spoken Morphology, I have worked with theoretical linguists, computational linguists and speech production experts, resulting in a number of joint papers. As a team leader, I worked with a number of student assistants on various annotation tasks which served as the basis of research projects. During my time in the project 'Berufsbezogene Lehre' ('Career-related teaching'), I worked in yet another team to develop strategies and organize events to strengthen the relation between the theoretical world of academia and the business world.
That I am a quick and ambitious learner becomes evident when looking at my academic career. I started my PhD in English linguistics at a disadvantage. Different from most PhD candidates, I did not hold a Masters in linguistics, i.e. I had much less linguistic knoweldge. Furthermore, I did not have any clue about data science and only little knowledge of statistics. Nevertheless, I became the first, and up to now, only one to finish her PhD in the research unit. I also became the go-to-person with regard to questions concering statistics and programming.
Writing, Presenting and Editing
I wrote a book. I wrote research papers. I taught classes on academic writing. I can write.
I presented several papers at international conferences, as well as held innumerous presentations at internal meetings. Furthermore, I have been holding lectures for years. I even received an award for one of my presentations. So, I'd like to think I am quite good at it.
During the last years, I was very lucky to work in a great team with a terrific culture of constructive criticism. We would read and edit each other's papers and thereby not only improve the publications, but also improve our own abilities as writers, and editors. Apart from critically commenting on innumerous internal publications, I also served as a reviewer for the linguistic journal Morphology, Glossa, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, and Laboratory Phonology.