Mentorship
Looking for internships, a job, or trying to figure out how to successfully apply to grad school? Seeking advice on the job market and how to potentially use your CLS language skills? Want to learn more about a specific region in which CLSers have studied?
CLSAS will pair you with mentors who suit your specific needs. With alumni across languages and industries, we are an immense knowledge base that can help one another successfully navigate job markets, academia, or merely give advice on what are the best places to stay and eat abroad!
Feel free to reach out directly to the highlighted mentors below, or fill out this Mentorship Application and the CLSAS mentorship coordinator will get back to you within a week.
If you would like to become a featured mentor, e-mail us at communications@clsas.org.
Featured Mentors
Sheen Atwa
CLSAS Mentor
CLS Morocco 2016
CLS Tanzania 2018
Hello, I’m Sheen,
I am an undergraduate student studying Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies at Columbia University in New York City. My concentration is in North and East Africa and human rights.
For the past 5 years, I have been working with refugee communities in the US and abroad. First, using Arabic to assist in youth cultural immersion program for Iraqis and Syrians in Georgia, USA and in Cairo, Egypt. And now I am using Swahili in the same manner. My current focus is researching the idea of ethnographic changes that appear with social movements and the movement of people and the effects on identity after the Arab Spring in Egypt in 2011 and thereafter.
I am an alumnus of the CLS Arabic program in Tangier, Morocco 2016 and of the CLS Swahili program in Arusha, Tanzania in 2018. If you want to contact me about anything or if you are in the NYC area and just want to chat, you can reach me at sheen.atwa@gmail.com.
Dan Brodkin
Fulbright scholar
CLS Mentor
NSF Fellow
Ph.D Candidate in Linguistics, UC Santa Cruz
Hey everyone, I’m Dan!
I’m a Ph.D student in linguistics at UC Santa Cruz, and right now, I’m conducting a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Malang, Indonesia. Back home, my research focuses on the cognitive sides of language, like how we produce and parse linguistic structures in the mind, and out here in the field, I’m investigating social questions of language usage and change in a rapidly modernizing Indonesia.
I’ve been working with Indonesian languages for the past 3 years now, looking at all sorts of topics- I’ve presented work on diachronic sound change in Malay, nickname structure in Javanese, and control and linearization in Minangkabau, a regional language of West Sumatra. Within linguistics, I’m primarily interested in syntax and the syntax-phonology interface- that is, how we generate linguistic structures in the mind and then convert those into speakable strings, and right now, I’m exploring some of these theoretical questions in Mamuju, a regional language of South Sulawesi. At UC Santa Cruz, my work is supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, which I received to pursue my research on Indonesian syntax.
Definitely drop me a line if you’re interested in anything mentioned above! I’d be happy to chat about life in Indonesia, applying for Fulbright/NSF Grants after CLS, grad school in linguistics, or even just grammatical questions about Indonesian. You can always reach me at danbrodkin@gmail.com!
Megan Cansfield
CLSAS Mentor
CLS Chinese 2016
University of Michigan
Peking University, Beijing
Hello all, I’m Megan. It’s nice to meet you (virtually)!
I am a 2016 alumna of the CLS Chinese program in Tainan, Taiwan, and a 2017 graduate of the University of Michigan, where I concentrated in International Studies, Political Science, and Asian Studies. Currently, I am a Fulbright research fellow at Yanbian University in China, where my work explores evolving strategic perceptions of the intersections between US-China bilateral relations and the North Korean nuclear crisis within the Northeast Asian security environment.
I have been fortunate enough to find many an occasion to put my Mandarin proficiency to use so far before and after CLS, from China-focused academic research and English-to-Mandarin translation projects to interning at U.S. diplomatic posts in China and analyzing Chinese foreign affairs commentaries at a Beijing-based consultancy. If you get the impression that I’m a bit of a burgeoning Sinophile by reading that, you’d be right!
I am especially excited to take this interest to the next level in September 2018, when I will begin my graduate studies as a Yenching Academy Scholar at Peking University in Beijing. There I’ll be working towards an MA of China Studies in Politics and International Relations, with a likely academic focus on the potential of the Korean Peninsula peace process as a catalyst for regional cooperation and security regime institutionalization.
I’m happy to be of help mentoring however I can, particularly on East Asian language and area studies fellowship and internship opportunities. If any of my experiences with Chinese are of interest to you – or if you’re simply eager to connect with a fellow IR/foreign policy geek to chat about China/the Koreas/Asia – my inbox is always open at megancansfield@gmail.com!
