Dr. Aviva Shimelman
I received a PhD in Linguistics from Université Laval, in Quebec (Canada). Before that, I received MA''s in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico), respectively. My BA is from Brown University (USA). Although my focus in graduate school was formal semantics, my current specialization is the documentation of endangered languages. This involves, among other things, making audio and audio-video recordings of and writing dictionaries and grammars for languages that will soon disappear. I just finished a three-year project in Peru, working with speakers of a Quechuan language called Yauyos. I''ve also worked in New Caledonia with speakers of a Wallic language called Arho. (You can read the grammar of Yauyos and see some of the videos I made in both places at these addresses:
http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/5312
http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/3849).
Before coming to BNU, I taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz; California State University, Monterey Bay; San José State University (also in California); and Université Laval (in Quebec). I keep my sanity principally by running long-distance (trails) and practicing yoga (in fact, I used to moonlight as a yoga teacher). I also very much enjoy rock climbing, kite surfing and practicing martial arts (principally Tae Kwon Do). Poetry? I read a lot of it and write a little of it. Gardening? Just about my favorite thing to do. Guitar? Never did get the hang of it.