Wednesday, April 8 2026, 1:15 - 3:15pm Sidney Samuel Thomas Reading Room, 3rd floor of the Miller Learning Center The Department of Linguistics, with the Internship and Career Coordinator for the Humanities, is sponsoring a panel with four accomplished alumni. This event will take place on Wednesday, April 8th at 1:15 pm and will include lunch. The location for the event will be the Sidney Samuel Thomas Reading Room, on the 3rd floor of the Miller Learning Center. This event is sponsored by the Parents Leadership Council and the Willson Center for Arts and Humanities. Each panelist will speak about their careers and how their Linguistics degrees helped prepare them for their current roles. All Department of Linguistics majors and minors are encouraged to attend, enjoy lunch, and take the opportunity to meet and talk with the alumni. The four panelists include: Tyesha Ferron is a Content Operations Specialist at Coupons.com, where she maintains a portfolio of retailer landing pages that drive traffic and revenue to the platform. After graduating from UGA, Tyesha earned her MA in Applied Linguistics & ESL from Georgia State University and worked as an ESL instructor before transitioning to content marketing. She has written hundreds of pieces of web content for a diverse set of industries, including drone industries, legal services, and ecommerce. Based in Atlanta, Tyesha has leveraged her linguistics expertise into a career in SEO and content operations. Grace Finnan - After graduating with degrees in Linguistics and Psychology from UGA, Grace discovered the field of Data Science and Natural Language Processing. She attended a Data Science bootcamp at General Assembly, where she learned Python and all of the Computer Science skills she needed to start her career. In college, Grace never thought she would be interested in programming, but this field gave her the opportunity to use her Linguistics knowledge in a practical way and she gets to solve puzzles every day. She now works as a Senior Data Analyst at Doximity. Scarlett McCullough has been with the Smithsonian Institution since 2020 in various positions at the National Postal Museum, the Arts+Industries Building, and is currently the National Museum of Asian Art’s Tour Coordinator. Her experience centers around museum education, visitor services, and public programming. Prior to the Smithsonian, she worked at Barnett Shoals Elementary in Athens, GA and Van Ness Elementary in Washington, DC as a Classroom Educator and Reading Specialist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from the University of Georgia (minor in Public Policy & Management) and a Master of Arts in Teaching-Museum Education from The George Washington University. Michael Wolfman - Michael (B.A. '22) graduated from UGA in 2024 with an M.A. in Linguistics, focusing on the Cognitive Science of Language. In short, he used a combination of neuroimaging and computational modeling to better understand how language works in the human brain. After graduation, he transitioned into a dual Product Owner / Data Scientist role at MapHabit. MapHabit, an Atlanta-based startup, provides an assistive-care platform to individuals with cognitive deficits across the lifespan, focusing on building or maintaining independence and improving outcomes. In his role(s), Michael focuses on using a combined qualitative-quantitative data-driven approach to optimize the MapHabit platform for its users.
