Meet the 2019 WAYK summer team soon!


Simone Catanach : 2019 WAYK Summer Team

Simone Catanach

2019 WAYK Summer Team

Simone Catanach hails from the Pueblo of Pojoaque in Northern New Mexico, which is where she was first introduced to the WAYK method after it was brought to her community by her brother/former WAYK intern Samuel Catanach in an effort to help revitalize Pojoaque’s own heritage language, Tewa. Her interest in WAYK grew after working as an assistant teacher during a summer program that used the method to teach Tewa to the youth of Pojoaque, which in turn inspired her to apply as an intern for the 2019 Summer Intensive.

Robyn Giffen : 2015 WAYK Summer Team, 2016 WAYK Summer Team, 2018 WAYK Summer Team, 2019 WAYK Summer Team

Robyn Giffen

2015 WAYK Summer Team, 2016 WAYK Summer Team, 2018 WAYK Summer Team, 2019 WAYK Summer Team

Robyn Giffen, a 4-time WAYK intern, lives in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. She has a Master’s degree in linguistic anthropology and has spent the last four years teaching linguistic anthropology courses at UBC’s Okanagan campus. She first encountered WAYK in 2014 and has worked with WAYK as an intern in St. Paul, Alaska in the summer of 2015, in Atka, Alaska in 2016, and Anchorage, Alaska in 2018 on the Unangam Tunuu project! Robyn is very excited to be part of the project in Vancouver, BC so close to her home in 2019!

Follow Robyn on Twitter and Instagram.

Jenna Hassan : 2019 WAYK Summer Team

Jenna Hassan

2019 WAYK Summer Team

Born in Ontario, raised in British Columbia, and currently living in the Netherlands, Jenna Hassan is not one to sit still. After graduating with a B.A in Linguistics and finishing a teaching role in France she decided to pursue a research M.A. in Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam in 2018. She became more passionate about language revitalization during her undergraduate degree and was encouraged to apply to WAYK by WAYK Alum Erin McGarvey and her bachelor thesis advisor. Jenna is thrilled to be able to work alongside the Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish Nations, on whose land she grew up, during the summer of 2019.

Connect with Jenna on twitter and instagram for linguistics and social advocacy related content!

Josh Higginbotham : 2014 WAYK Summer Team, 2015 Kodiak Immersion House Team, 2019 WAYK Summer Team

Josh Higginbotham

2014 WAYK Summer Team, 2015 Kodiak Immersion House Team, 2019 WAYK Summer Team

Josh has been a public high school teacher in Oklahoma City for thirteen years, teaching classes daily in Latin, Greek, German and Philosophy. His brain was set ablaze by WAYK (Evan Gardner held the lighter!) in 2013, and he hasn’t slept since. He likes to say that “WAYK completely destroyed most of what I was doing as a teacher and as a student; I’ve been grateful for it every day since.” He has found few other things in life as meaningful to him as his experiences with language revitalization and the friendships he’s made along the way.

Follow Josh on Twitter.