ALUMNI REPORT: WILL BUCHANAN AND MAX CORBIN

Will Buchanan and Max Corbin both graduated with a BA in linguistics in the spring of 2014. Having taken Syntax 2 together in Spring 2013, they formed a plan to conduct a joint research project on the interaction between so-called across-the-board movement and parasitic gaps. This was a subtle and difficult investigation which entailed some delicate experimental work and some fairly sophisticated statistical analysis. In bringing it to successful completion, they had help and advice from Jim McCloskey, Matt Wagers, and Clara Sherley-Appel (who had been their TA in Syntax 2). We were glad to learn recently that Max and Will are now moving on professionally, each in their own way. Will starts the MA program in computational linguistics at Brandeis University in the fall of 2016. Max has recently accepted an offer to work at Looker Data Sciences in downtown Santa Cruz as an Analyst. Max reports that he is “super stoked” at the prospect of bringing his training in linguistics to bear in his new role analyzing large databases of plain text conversation and at the prospect of building a career in data science (though he has not abandoned the possibility of doing graduate work in linguistics at some point).