In the final year of my master's program in Linguistics, I am focusing on evaluating and mitigating social biases in large language models (LLMs) trained on data from low-resource languages, as well as exploring the impact of debiasing LLMs fine-tuned for literary machine translation. My research interests include computational linguistics, natural language processing, and slavistics. I also have experience in data annotation, translation (Croatian-English), teaching, customer service, and administration.

I hold a bachelor's in Linguistics and Slavic Languages and Literatures from UC Berkeley, a degree I began at the University of Zagreb. I was born and raised in Zagreb, Croatia where I worked as a translator before moving to the US to continue my education.

I'm completing my MA this June at UC Davis where I've taken coursework on formal linguistics (Advanced Syntax, Phonetics, Phonology etc.), as well as computer science (Data Structures and Algorithms, Computational Linguistics). My thesis work focuses on evaluating and mitigating social biases in large language models (LLMs) trained on data from low-resource languages, as well as exploring the impact of debiasing LLMs fine-tuned for literary machine translation. I am also a Researcher in the Computational Linguistics Lab.

University of California, Davis

I double-majored in Linguistics and Slavic Languages and Literatures. I completed coursework on formal linguistics (Syntax, Morphology, Phonology, Phonetics etc.), as well as on Slavic Studies (Russian Literature of the 19th Century, Slavic Linguistics etc.). In addition, I became a member of the Dobro Slovo National Slavic Honor Society, was an editor for TROIKA Undergraduate Journal in Eastern European, Eurasian, and Slavic Studies, and was a Research Apprentice in the Department of Linguistics and School of Information where I assisted on research into phonetics, speech perception, sociolinguistics, and text analysis, ran experiments and provided feedback on experiment design, annotated text, and edited and transcribed audio.

Projects I contributed to:

Differential effects of pitch on perceived duration in linguistic and
auditory tasks. Emily Grabowski (2022), Poster presented at the 182nd meeting of
the Acoustical Society of America, Denver, Colorado, USA.

Cheng, A. (2022). Second Dialect Acquisition “in real time”: Two longitudinal case studies from YouTube.
American Speech. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-9766922

David Bamman's work on LitBank
https://github.com/dbamman/litbank

University of California, Berkeley

Teaching discussion sections for LIN 1: Introduction to Linguistics for up to 120 students per quarter, creating lesson plans, grading assignments, proctoring exams, hosting office hours

Graduate Student Teaching Assistant

Taught summer reading classes to 225 students 1st-7th grade, assessed students' reading and writing skills and provided feedback

Virtual Teacher

Drafted forms for visa extensions and employment authorizations, corresponded with foreign nationals to help prepare cases

Business Immigration Coordinator

Digitized documents associated with films, edited stills in Photoshop, connected researchers with materials, worked with film research databases

Administrative Assistant

Trained and managed staff at the busiest store in the district, opened the store, created the inventory order

Shift Supervisor

I was voted Partner of the Quarter by staff at my store.

Partner of the Quarter

Because of my high GPA, I became a member of the Dobro Slovo National Slavic Honor Society upon completing a BA in Slavic Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley.

Member

Alexandra Butler

English

Native or bilingual proficiency

German

Elementary proficiency

Croatian

Bosnian

Professional working proficiency

Serbian

Analytical Linguist

Store Manager

Supervisor

Teaching

Python

Data Analysis

Time Management

Analytical skills

Presentation skills

customer service

Time Management Skills

Large scale data extraction and analysis

Data Annotation

Fluent Croatian

Experimental Research

Language Translation/Interpretation

Machine Translation

Praat

Adaptable

Communication

Conflict Resolution

Multitasking

Process Improvement

Detail Oriented

written communication

Self-Motivated

Leadership skills

Team work

Communication Skills

Adaptability

Problem-solving and resourcefulness

Problem-Solving

Detail oriented  and highly organized

Multi tasker

Alexandra Butler

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