Curriculum Vitae
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EDUCATION
 
 
August 2006 – July 2011
CASTL (Center for Advanced Study in Theoretical Linguistics), University of Tromsø, Norway
PhD Research Fellow in Theoretical Linguistics
    *   Dissertation: Place Assimilations in Arabic: contrasts, features and constraints (in preparation).
        Supervisors: Bruce Morén-Duolljá and Martin Krämer
 
September – December 2008
Department of Linguistics, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
Visiting Scholar
    *   Advisor: Stuart Davis
 
August 2004 – June 2006
Faculty of Humanities, University of Tromsø, Norway                                        
MPhil English Linguistics
*   Thesis: Vocalic Feature Assimilation in Cairene Arabic and Buchan Scots. Grade: A
     Committee: Patrik Bye (advisor), Bruce Morén-Duolljá, Jardar Abrahamsen (Trondheim)
 
September 1998 – May 2002
Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University, Egypt
BA English language
*   General estimate: very good (80%), Italian minor
 
August 1996 – May 1998
The Armand Hammer United World College of the American West, New Mexico, USA
International Baccalaureate Diploma
*   Score 36 on a 42 scale, Bilingual Diploma
 
Summer Programs
 
12 – 16 June 2008
Phonological Variation and Language Change Ph.D. seminar, Flåm, Norway
 
30 July – 10 August 2007                                
14th Eastern Generative Grammar (EGG) Summer School, Brno, Czech Republic
 
25 July – 5 August 2005            
12th Eastern Generative Grammar (EGG) Summer School, Wroclaw, Poland
 
26 July – 6 August 2004                    
11th Eastern Generative Grammar (EGG) Summer School, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
 
 
FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS
 
2006–2011    Pre-doctoral Fellowship, University of Tromsø
 
Fall   2008    Overseas Research Fellowship at Indiana University, University of Tromsø
 
2004–2006    Quota Scholarship to the MPhil program in Linguistics, University of Tromsø
 
1996–1998    Armand Hammer United World College scholarship
 
 
PUBLICATIONS & TALKS
 
See  www.hum.uit.no/a/youssef/Research.html
 
 
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
 
Courses taught at the University of Tromsø
                        
    LIN-1030 Phonetics       Fall 2009
    (Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education, undergraduate course; with Peter Jurgec)
                                                          
    English Language and Linguistics         Spring 2009
    (Faculty of Education, undergraduate course; with Anne Dahl)
                                                          
    ENG-1016 English Phonetics & Phonology      Fall 2007
    (Faculty of Humanities, undergraduate course; with Martin Krämer)
                                                          
    LIN-1030 Phonetics         Spring 2007
    (Faculty of Humanities, undergraduate course; with Peter Jurgec)
 
Other courses
 
August 2007– May 2008  & March – May 2010                                                        
Modern Standard Arabic        Alnor Center, Tromsø, Norway  
* Instructor (volunteer); beginners & intermediate levels
 
October 2000 – July 2001  
Arabic & English (ESL)        Al-Ahram D.I.B. Language Center, Cairo, Egypt
* Instructor and curriculum developer; Modern Standard Arabic (beginners level) and English as a second language (intermediate & advanced levels)
 
 
OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
 
Long-Term Jobs
 
June 2009 - December 2010    
Mango Languages          Michigan, USA
An online language-learning system that teaches conversation skills
Course Editor/ Developer        telecommute
* Edited Levantine Arabic course (Traveling Tom- mango 2.0)
* Developed courses for MSA & ESL for Arabic speakers (mango 1.5)
 
September 2002 - June 2004    
Sakhr Software, alAlamia Group      Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt
The leader in Arabic machine translation and speech processing software
Computational Linguist (Machine Translation Department)          full time
* Conducted lexical database research with syntactic and semantic analysis
* Developed and tested tools for software and online machine translation engines (translate.sakhr.com) and electronic dictionaries
 
March 2003 - July 2004    
Freelance Translator    (English into Arabic & vice versa)
* Translated and proofread commercial, legal, technical, financial, musical, educational and human rights documents and websites
* Participated in the translation of the World Bank website and PGP software
 
July – September 2002      
Dar El-Farouk for Publishing and Distribution       Dokki, Cairo, Egypt
One of the leading translation-based publishing houses in the Middle East
Translator/ Copy Editor     full time
* Translated and edited several publications from Arabic into English
* Supported the development of the Islamic terminology database
 
August 1999 – October 2001
El-Siasa El-Dawlia Newspaper      Alexandria, Egypt
 Translator/ Supervisor of International Reports page    part  time
* Translated and edited reports from international publications and websites
* Wrote a monthly column on political and economic issues
 
Summer Jobs
 
24-26 July 2006       BBC World Service     Fixer/ Editorial Assistant
* Arranged interviews and translated material for a special BBC program "Suez- Fifty Years On"
* Presented two live reviews of Egyptian press on BBC Wold Today
 
July 2006      Holiday Tours       Cairo, Egypt
* Performed various jobs related to the tourism industry including conference planning and guiding groups of tourists on short tours
 
1-26 August 2005      Arctic-Alpine Botanic Garden     Tromsø, Norway
* Performed a variety of gardening tasks
 
June – August 1998     Linfield College        Oregon, USA
    * Conferences and events planning staff  
 
 
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
 
University of Tromsø, Norway
 
Oct    2007   Science Fair  (Praat spectrogram analysis)
 
April  2007   GLOW XXX  (responsible for book exhibition)
 
Nov   2006   Saami Linguistics Symposium (session chair)
 
Sept  2006   Phonological Features Workshop (session chair)
 
Sept  2005   Workshop on Freedom of Analysis (session chair)
 
Jan   2005    OCP2 (organization staff)
 
United World College, New Mexico, USA
 
1996- 1998    Sierra Vista elementary school (teacher's aide for special theme classes )
 
1997-1998     Big Brothers Big Sisters Program  (volunteer)    
 
1996-1998     Los Ninos Pre-school (chess tutor)  
 
 
LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY
 
Arabic            mother tongue
English          near-native fluency
Norwegian    good written and spoken (6 years)
French           fair written and spoken (4 years)
Italian           basic reading skills (4 years)
 
 
STANDARD TEST SCORES
 
TOEFL  (computer-based)    December 2005    Score on a 300 scale: 287
 
SAT II    October 1997
             MATH I  660    WRITING 540    FRENCH 610
 
Trinn-3   (Norwegian proficiency exam)      December 2007    Grade: C
 
 
COMPUTER SKILLS
 
* Proficient in Windows & Mac OS X applications, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint), Internet skills, touch-typing skills, TRADOS translation memory workbench, Machine Translation tools, Praat
 
 
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
 
* Member of GLOW (Generative Linguistics in the Old World)
* Member of AATA (American Association of Teachers of Arabic)
* Member of AIDA (Association Internationale de Dialectologie Arabe)
* Member of SLE (Societas Linguistica Europaea)
* Member of Cairo Linguists Group
 
©Islam Youssef, 2006–