Editing, reviewing, proofreading, copyediting....
Languages (particularly Italian, Spanish, Farsi, Latin)
Linguistics (MA from UW-Madison; particularly historical linguistics, semantics & semiotics, syntax, phonetics)
Literature (particularly English and Italian lit, especially Dante; some modern lit)
History
Art
Philosophy
Psychology
Science (particularly astronomy, anatomy & biology, neurobiology (particularly developmental and language related))
Sleep, Tea, Coffee, Chocolate, Wine, Perfume
Arts & Crafts
Gaming, Graphic Novels, and other of the geek arts
Home Organization & Decor
Office Administration & Organizational Behavior
Cat's interests are as multifaceted as can be imagined. If one could ever glean a unifying theme of her life and pursuits, it would be an inherent love of learning.
Cat enjoys books from Plato to Jasper Fforde and Neil Gaiman, Umberto Eco to Mary Roach, Dante Alighieri to Stephen Hawking. She has similar taste in music, meaning she'll listen to pretty much anything with pleasure and will discover some value in it. As genre goes, the same generally holds true for film—though, of course, she has her favorites: Doctor Who, anything based on books by Jane Austen, the various works of Joss Whedon, and any movie or show that exists in thought-provoking and unexpected intersections of genres. Cat tends to play video games that involve resource management or puzzle solving, particularly anything with beautiful, innovative art. On the other hand, she is a rather fine sniper and can tank-and-spank through a dungeon with the best of them.
Sadly and proudly, she considers organization a hobby, art, and calling.
Cat loves crafts. She paints and sculpts, does origami and photography, and tries any interesting hobby she comes across. She particularly favors jewelry design and construction, knitting or crochet, and custom perfume blending—the latter of which has unexpectedly informed her mixing of interesting cocktails and creation of unusual homemade desserts like her famous vanilla-almond-rose Persian ice cream.
Her beloved pug, of course, would prefer she spent more time snuggling; failing that, breeding, training, and a return to professional dog showing would be acceptable... if there were cookies involved.
Cat attended Wesleyan University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Boston Language Institute. She was a member and Critic with Alpha Delta Phi, a member and officer with Toastmasters, and is an occasional BzzAgent.
There are few things more fascinating for her than studying a new language, from Klingon to Farsi, and Cat is a somewhat rusty speaker and reader of Italian, Spanish, Farsi, and Latin. Of all the things in the world she delights in learning, Cat has a particular passion for communication and language.
UW-Madison is the flagship campus and a highly-regarded selective public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin. The oldest and largest public university in the state, UW-Madison is labeled one of the "Public Ivies," a publicly funded university considered as providing a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League.
At the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the linguistics department faculty specialize in phonology, morphology, syntax, and American Indian languages. Cat earned her master’s in Linguistics, focused on historical linguistics, syntax, and semantics.
Level 1 Farsi is an introduction to Modern Farsi (Persian), covering phonology and fundamentals of Farsi syntax with conversational proficiency as the primary goal. Students learn to read and write the Farsi alphabet and gain proficiency with simple texts. Upon completion of level 2, students converse with more confidence, able to introduce themselves, make requests and describe things, learn about some cultural issues to enhance their comprehension, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of grammatical topics.
Cat worked with the architecture/engineering integrated, multi-disciplinary firms Cannon Design and Symmes Maini and McKee Associates for nearly a decade. She wrote and edited emails to marketing materials, Master Plans and proposals, specifications and contracts, process documentation and how-to guides.
In addition to tutoring and mentoring in undergraduate and graduate studies, Cat has been involved in various training and educational roles everywhere she's worked. A considerable majority of the material she works on with Cohesion/nSight is for their client Pearson Education, on their full spectrum of content.
Cat often worked with marketing departments and principals/managers on client-facing documentation and materials targeting prospective clients, particularly at SMMA. These included profiles, master plans, presentations, and proposals.
Clients come to WA with content and editing-only orders for blog posts in a broad variety of industries, from Automotive to Women's Issues, Education to Employment, Legal to Lifestyle, Software to Spirituality.
WA data as of September 2017: 389 orders; 210,030 words
WA clients order content and editing-only work on vast numbers of articles on various topics applicable to a variety of industries.
WA data as of September 2017: 202 orders; 124,910 words
