About Me

I was born in Tehran, Iran, originally of Armenian descent. My father was a structural engineer and my mother was an architect. I grew up mostly within the Armenian community, attending an Armenian bilingual school in Tehran. I left the country a year after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. I lived in Paris for couple of years and then finished high school in Los Angeles. After studying Electrical Engineering for three years, I switched fields and received my undergraduate degree in Physics at the University of Southern California (USC), pursued graduate studies in Neural Computation, and then went on to get my PhD in Linguistics at USC, studying with Prof. Jean-Roger Vergnaud.​ While finishing my doctoral degree, I started working at the Computing Research Lab in New Mexico, directed by Prof. Sergei Nirenburg, where I worked on the development of the Shiraz project, the first Persian-English machine translation system  (1998-2000). My experience at CRL launched my career in the field of computational linguistics, while continuing my theoretical linguistic research on the side. I worked at Inxight Software in Silicon Valley, California for a few years (now part of SAP), developing computational grammars for Persian and Arabic. While living in San Diego, I also taught Armenian and Persian heritage language courses at the University of California, San Diego. I moved to Washington, D.C. in 2005 where, after a short stint as a researcher at the Center for Advanced Study of Language (CASL) at the University of Maryland, I started work at the MITRE Corporation where I worked for almost 18 years. While in D.C., I also taught courses at the Communication, Culture and Technology department at Georgetown University as Adjunct Faculty, and earned a graduate certificate degree in Computational Social Science at George Mason University. ​I am now living in Miami, Florida where the oceans are warm and the tropical fruits are plenty!
​
While living in San Diego, I became more involved in US politics. I was an active member of the Green Party where I served in various committees and occupied positions in a number of capacities. My involvement encompassed all aspects of party building with major focus on outreach activities, educational event organizing, formation of strategic alliances, and organizational development. I also participated in several issue-advocacy as well as electoral campaigns over the years (e.g., Peter Camacho for Governor, Ralph Nader for President). I developed a strong background in grassroots organizing methods, middle east issues, and knowledge of the US electoral system, in particular as it relates to third party politics. 
​
In my spare time, I have always dabbled in the performance arts. I was part of an Armenian traditional dance performance group for four years and also performed piano at local classical music venues in Los Angeles. I studied and performed Flamenco and oriental dance (belly dance) for several years. As part of the Lark ensemble choir, I sang suites by the Armenian composer Komitas at the Hollywood Bowl during the Los Angeles Festival in 1993. I have studied different musical instruments such as the Armenian Kanon and the Persian Setar. These days, I have discovered Kung Fu, Qi Gong, and Tai Chi, though most of my spare time is spent running a cat rescue organization in Miami, Florida.
​
​I speak Armenian, Persian, French and English. I have also studied Italian, Spanish, and Russian, and have computational knowledge of Arabic.​