Curriculum Vitae

 

Personal Information:

 

Name: Betsy McCall (Elizabeth Julia McCall)

 

Home Address: 612 Riverview Drive, White Oak, PA 15131

 

Home Phone: (412) 751-8058; (412) 512-7284 (cell phone)

Facsimile: (440) 354-0553

 

Work Address: University of Pittsburgh, Department of Mathematics, 301 Thackeray Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

 

Work Phone: (412) 624-7763

 

E-mail: betsymccall@comcast.net, bem7@pitt.edu

 

Education:

 

In Progress: Doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh in mathematics.

 

Masters of Science degree in Management Information Systems, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2003.

 

Masters of Science degree in Mathematics, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, 2002.  Thesis topic: Decision Theory, Applications to Linguistic Analysis.

 

Masters of Arts degree in Linguistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana in 1999.

 

Bachelor of Arts degree in Classical and Medieval Studies, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio in 1997 (minors in Mathematics and Physics).  Senior Thesis Topic: The influence of astronomy upon religion.

 

Academic and Professional Experience:

 

2003-2004 - Teaching assistant, Duquesne University, School of Leadership and Professional Advancement, Pittsburgh, PA.

 

2002-2004 - Teaching assistant, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Mathematics, Pittsburgh, PA.

 

2000 to 2002 - Graduate Assistant, Cleveland State University, Department of Mathematics.  Cleveland, Ohio.

 

2000-2002 - guest lecturer on the topic of history of science for courses instructed by Daniel-James Thornton, Cleveland State University.  These were paid lectures (one per course per term) for the Introduction to Western Civilization I (HIS 101), Fall of Rome (HIS 340/540), and History of Rome (HIS 331) courses.

 

2000 - instructor (substitute, three weeks), third semester Classical Greek  (GRK 350), Cleveland State University.  Regular instructor for this course is Dr. Mike Baumer, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, missing during this period due to illness.  This work was unpaid.  For additional information, please contact Dr. Baumer.

 

1998 to 1999 - Business Manager, Indiana University Linguistics Club Publications.

 

1998 to 1999 - General Editor, Indiana University Working Papers in Linguistics (first issue, July 1999).

 

Professional Organizations:

 

Linguistic Society of America, member 1998 to present.

Modern Language Association, member 1997 to present.

Society of Physics Students, member 1999 to present.

Mathematical Society of America, member 2000 to present.

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, member 2000 to present.

Association of Women in Mathematics, member 2000 to present.

Indiana University Linguistics Club, member 1997 to 1999.  Served as Secretary in 1998. 
          Served as Vice-President in 1999.

Voces Antiquae et Medievales, member 1994 to 1997.
          Served as Treasurer in 1996.  Served as Vice President in 1996.  Served as President in 1997.

Graduate representative from mathematics to the university computer committee 2002-03

 

Community Activities:

 

1992 - Press Secretary and Publications Officer, Jan Litterst Campaign for State Representative.

 

2000 to 2002 – pollworker/election day judge, Lake County, Ohio.

 

Publications and Presentations:

 

McCall, Betsy 1998.  "Restrictions on Stop-Stop Clusters in Ancient Greek: Implications for Alignment" Presented at the 4th Mid-Continental Workshop on Phonology, October 1998.

McCall, Betsy 1999a.  "Luo Verb Morphology".  Presented at the 30th Annual Conference on African Linguistics, July 2-5, 1999.

McCall, Betsy 1999b.  “Phonologically-Driven Morphosyntax: An OT Account of Ancient Greek”.  Presented at the 5th Mid-Continental Workshop on Phonology, October 1999.

McCall, Betsy & Kyoko Nagao 1999.  "Aspects of Markedness in Japanese Mimetics".   Presented at the 52nd Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, April 22-24, 1999.

Nagao, Kyoko & Betsy McCall 1999 "A Perception-Based Account of Mimetic Palatalization in Japanese".  Presented at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences satellite meeting, 'The Role of Perception in Phonology', July 30, 1999.

McCall, Betsy 2000. "Metathesis, Deletion, Dissimilation and Consonant Ordering in Proto-Greek"  Presented at the 11th UCLA Indo-European Conference, June 4-5, 1999.  Appears in Proceedings of the 11th UCLA Indo-European Conference, Journal of Indo-European Studies.

McCall, Betsy 2003.  Decision Theoretic Models of Optimality”.  Proceedings of the Workshop of Variation within Optimality Theory, April 26-27, 2003.

 

Research Interests:

 

Mathematical applications to the study of linguistics.  These include: statistical analysis, decision theory, game theory, dynamical systems, numerical analysis and analysis of wave forms.

 

Linguistic analysis of phonetics/phonology/morphology interactions.  Specifically, Japanese mimetic palatalization (represented in decision theoretic terms, an acoustic prominence approach), consonant clusters, particularly stop-stop clusters, and clusters restricted by place features.  I enjoy looking at dead languages that are traditionally looked at in a historical context in a synchronic context instead, particularly Ancient Greek.  (I do not do historical linguistics.)  I enjoy looking at metathesis (or apparent metathesis), and phonology/morphology/syntax interactions.  I am also interested in dynamical modeling of dialect/language contact, cognitive and neurological applications.

 

 

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last updated: 05 June 2003.