Nathan Lafave Email & Phone Number

New York City Metropolitan Area

• Generate experimental and corpus research solutions to address highly ambiguous problem spaces and provide internal and third-party customers with what they need, which is not always what they initially request.• Investigate and apply new Machine Learning techniques to novel Alexa features.• Monitor and improve customer experience metrics for users of 150K+ global Alexa Skills by providing language modeling and business intelligence solutions for Alexa Skill Builders across 16 languages/markets.• Test, benchmark, and provide support to engineers and product teams for classic statistical language models and Large Language Models (LLMs).• Create and implement human data annotation workflows and conventions for measuring product quality via customer experience, engagement, and monetization metrics.• Use programming languages (e.g., Structured Query Language (SQL)) to extract, transform, and manipulate data from databases handling big data volumes.• Communicate technical information verbally and in writing to both technical and non technical business audiences, including clearly explaining complex problems and solutions, trade offs, benefits, and potential risks.

Greater Boston Area

• Generate experimental and corpus research solutions to address highly ambiguous problem spaces and provide internal and third-party customers with what they need, which is not always what they initially request.• Investigate and apply new Machine Learning techniques to novel Alexa features.• Monitor and improve customer experience metrics for users of 150K+ global Alexa Skills by providing language modeling and business intelligence solutions for Alexa Skill Builders across 16 languages/markets.• Test, benchmark, and provide support to engineers and product teams for statistical language models and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) artifacts.• Create and implement human data annotation workflows and conventions for measuring product quality via customer experience, engagement, and monetization metrics.• Use programming languages (e.g., Structured Query Language (SQL)) to extract, transform, and manipulate data from databases handling big data volumes.• Communicate technical information verbally and in writing to both technical and non technical business audiences, including clearly explaining complex problems and solutions, trade offs, benefits, and potential risks.

Cambridge, Ma

• Generate experimental and corpus research solutions to address highly ambiguous problem spaces and provide internal and third-party customers with what they need, which is not always what they initially request.• Investigate and apply new Machine Learning techniques to novel Alexa features, including on Alexa Voice Services (AVS) devices utilizing third-party hardware.• Monitor and improve customer experience metrics for users of 150K+ global Alexa Skills by providing language modeling and business intelligence solutions for Alexa Skill Builders across 16 languages/markets.• Test, benchmark, and provide support to engineers and product teams for statistical language models and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) artifacts.• Create and implement human data annotation workflows and conventions for measuring product quality via customer experience, engagement, and monetization metrics.• Use programming languages (e.g., Structured Query Language (SQL)) to extract, transform, and manipulate data from databases handling big data volumes.• Communicate technical information verbally and in writing to both technical and non technical business audiences, including clearly explaining complex problems and solutions, trade offs, benefits, and potential risks.

Supported faculty member in multiple different research initiatives, helped determine methodology and sample size requirements.Compiled, digitized, transcribed, and annotated data in archival research projects.Performed advanced statistical methods to supplement qualitative analysis with quantitative methods.Trained and acted as point-of-contact for undergraduate researcher assistants.Effectively communicated results in 4 academic conferences, including the Linguistic Society of America and New Ways of Analyzing Variation annual meetings.

Developed and conducted an ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of a community of video game players in New York City.Study collected multimodal real-world and virtual gameplay data from 50 individuals.Integrated research methods including ethnographic participant-observation over a two-year period, interviews, textual analysis, statistical modeling and graphing in R.Mentored undergraduate Research Assistant in these methods.

Supported faculty in teaching six undergraduate courses in the Linguistics and Psychology departments.Advised over 45 students in carrying out interviews with New Yorkers to contribute to the Voices of New York database.Created and graded exams, assignments, and term projects.

Primary instructor for Introduction to Linguistics undergraduate course.Developed course curriculum and all assessment materials, including tests, homework assignments, and research projects.

Performed automated collection of Twitter data referencing New York City English (NYCE) and its dialect features. Assessed language attitudes towards NYCE using sentiment analysis. Attended Digital Humanities workshops on topics including project development, using R for textual analysis, coding in XML using TEI guidelines, data visualization, and using Wordpress and Omeka to make research available for public engagement.

Conducted language acquisition studies with children (ages 2;0-6;0) and adult native and non-native speakers of English as a member of the Hunter College Language Acquisition Research Center (LARC). Transcribed audio and video files of experiments, coded data, performed statistical analysis using SPSS/PASW, and presented findings at weekly lab meetings. Recruited participants for all studies. Met weekly with the supervisor to present and discuss literature relevant to our studies.

Taught SAT and SAT II Physics preparatory courses to high school students.Tutored students who required individualized attention in preparing to take college entrance exams.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Sociolinguistics

Dissertation entitled: "Video gamers and the linguistic navigation of collaborative virtual environments."

Master Of Arts (M.A.), Sociolinguistics

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Linguistics

Activities and Societies: Theta Tau, University of Michigan Marching Band

Education record