Chris Palmatier, the BLC’s programmer for the past several years and before that, manager of the DCRF facility, has left the BLC for a bright future in independent contracting of his programming skills. Chris has been an amazing asset to the BLC, helping numerous faculty with advice and contributions to their research and educational software. For example, Chris played a key role in the development of the Mapping Petersburg website. Chris’s talents lie both in coding and in design: he created the layout for the BLC’s website and the special volume of articles honoring Claire Kramsch. For the past several years Chris has been primarily engaged in the programming and design of the LFLFC, which, without Chris’s talents, would never have had the clean look, the intuitive interface, and all the features that it now contains. Chris will be sorely missed at the BLC.
Please join me in welcoming Elle Yoko Suzuki, who comes to the BLC from Berkeley Law, where she has worked as an applications programmer for the past year. Elle is a graduate of Cal’s Department of Mathematics and has 10 years combined experience working as a Web programmer and UNIX systems administrator, as well as a Japanese, Spanish, and Polish language background. We are very fortunate to have her join the BLC, where she will be working with BLC Fellows, maintaining the BLC’s website and the Found In Translation site, and will continue the development of the LFLFC. In regard to the latter, our next feature will be the addition of an audio file taken from the video track, but where the audio has been slowed by 50% without changing the pitch, thereby helping students identify the words spoken in a clip. We’re excited to have Elle on the BLC team and look forward to working with her on the LFLFC and other BLC projects.