Linguistics Department Colloquium:

Samantha Beaver (founder, Memra Language Services; UWM Linguistics class of 2015)

Re-framing Language as a Technology; Re-framing the Linguist as a Tech-expert

Memra Language Services is a learning and analytics laboratory that brings sociolinguistic research techniques into traditional workplaces to capture and analyze employee language use. Linguists who work for Memra use language data to deliver nuanced insights about company culture, employee engagement, manager effectiveness, and team functionality. These linguistic insights are then used to design company-specific, language-based training.

Memra is a local, female-owned start-up that uses a language-based approach to tackle business challenges. Memra’s mission to make linguistic research techniques accessible to the business community embodies the Wisconsin Idea: that university research should be applied to solve problems and improve health, quality of life, the environment, and agriculture for all citizens of the state.