In my professional life, I am trying to find a good balance between doing the two activities I love most: linguistics and e-learning. I have more than 17 years of working experience as a linguist and more than 7 years as a project manager, e-learning consultant and course developer, both in freelance and in-house positions.

I studied French Language and Literature at the Free University in Amsterdam and earned my Ph.D. at Leiden University on a study of the grammar of a minority language in Nepal.

Starting in linguistics

I started my career as a professional linguist in the mid 90's. During my affiliation with the Himalayan Languages Project, I conducted field research in Nepal and wrote two grammars of different Kiranti languages. After obtaining my Ph.D. in Linguistics in 2002, I took part in the European research programme Languages and Genes of the Greater Himalayan Region as a postdoctoral fellow.

Switching to e-learning

In 2005, I made a career change and started working as a project manager and consultant in the e-learning industry. For many years, I was responsible for the successful planning, execution, monitoring, control and closure of numerous e-learning projects at Effecta Learning and ISM eCompany. Since then I have created numerous interactive training materials, courses and product presentations myself.

Back to linguistics

After some years of working full-time in e-learning, I started to miss doing research on the endangered languages of eastern Nepal. In 2008 and 2009, I was therefore happy to contribute to the 3rd revised and updated edition of the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.

Subsequently, in 2010 and 2011, I had the chance of temporarily moving back to full-time linguistics. For three semesters, I was employed as a lecturer at the Department of Linguistics at Bern University, Switzerland, where I taught courses in Phonology, Historical Tibeto-Burman Linguistics and Language Description and Linguistic Fieldwork. In the summer of 2011, I also went to Nepal to undertake fieldwork on Tilung, one of the most endangered languages of the Himalayan region.

E-Learning and linguistics

I currently work as an e-learning consultant at Mindbits. When not doing e-learning, I can be found working on the Kiranti Database Project or doing fieldwork on some undescribed and endangered language of Nepal, such as Wambule, Jero or Tilung.