I inhabit a number of different roles in my professional life, and language is fundamental to each of them. First, I work as an ESL Specialist in the Writing Center at UNC, where I provide English language support to international students and scholars. I am also trained as a theoretical phonologist and phonetician, with a focus on languages spoken in Southeast Asia, particularly Mon-Khmer languages. Finally, I have an ongoing interest in the maintenance and preservation of lesser spoken languages, in part because linguistic rights and language diversity are strong indicators of human rights, biological diversity, class (in)equality and so on.