Language and Career Week Speakers

Director of Dornsife Career Pathways

Octavio Avila is a career educator and higher education professional at the University of Southern California who helps people explore purpose, identify a career aim, and act towards goal-achievement.  Octavio received his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and Master’s in Education degree from USC. Octavio uses his professional training and knowledge of psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and human performance to elicit potential.  Octavio has supported numerous students and alumni achieve educational and career goals in his 28 years of experience and helped found USC Dornsife Career Pathways in 2016 to provide career services and resources to students and alumni.  Octavio resides in Los Angeles, CA with his family.  He is a musician and endurance athlete.

Tatiana Becerra graduated from USC’s Master of Public Health in 2024 with a concentration in Community Health Promotion and currently works as a Clinical Research Coordinator for the Department of Medicine – Medical Research Unit. Tatiana’s desire to connect with others motivated her to learn more languages like Mandarin and a little Korean and Japanese, but also improve her Spanish. She believes that speaking a mutual language has a powerful ability to provide comfort and create understanding between people, especially in a healthcare setting. In her spare time, she enjoys listening to boy bands and learning about culture through food.

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Rose Campion is interim Junior Professor in Ethnomusicology at the University of Cologne and is finishing her DPhil in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford. She conducts research with forced migrant musicians establishing their careers in Germany. Rose has received several grants and fellowships to live and work in Germany, including from the Humboldt Foundation, DAAD, and Toepfer Foundation. She graduated from USC in 2018 with a BA in Music and History and spent a semester abroad at TU

Nick Carballo currently works as an attorney specializing in Corporate Law in Chicago. He worked for a year as an immigration attorney’s assistant in Chicago before studying Law at UPeen. During the Summer of 2022, after his freshman year at UPenn, he participated in an internship at a Law Firm in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Nick Carballo graduated from USC in 2020, studying Political Sciences and minoring in Spanish.

Addie is Associate Director of International Student Career Engagement at the USC Career Center. She enjoys helping students and alumni explore career paths, perfect their resumes and cover letters, and hone their professional communication skills, and she specializes in international students and recent graduates. Addie is from Northern Minnesota and lived in China for 6.5 years. Some of her favorite things include hiking with her husband and dog, eating 火锅, discovering new dairy-free desserts, singing, exercising, and adventurous cooking.

Molly Courtney is currently teaching Arabic language classes as a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the Department of Middle East Studies at USC. After majoring in Arabic as an undergraduate, she completed an MA in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures and a PhD in Comparative Literature from UCLA. During her graduate studies, she also received FLAS and CASA fellowships for intensive Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian/Levantine dialect study.

After a long and brilliant experience within the Dolce & Gabbana house, Benedetta Finocchi decided to take an independent path in December 2019, founding her own company, My Way, with offices in Milan and Los Angeles. The agency’s name reflects her desire to chart a personal and distinctive path, building a tailor-made project into which her 20 years of experience and strategic industry vision converge. 

John Foulger is originally from Pocatello Idaho. He graduated from Utah State University with his bachelors in Psychology with a minor in Chemistry, then went on to get his Masters of Education in School Counseling also from Utah State University. While at Utah State he worked as an academic mentor to the USU athletics department and a graduate career advisor to exploratory students. While at USU career center he was briefly the host of the Career Tip Tuesdays career podcast. During his time at USC he has worked in the Academic Review and Retention office and now almost 3 years in the Dornsife Career Pathways office. In the Dornsife Career Pathways office John is the host of the career advising podcast Ask John (which can be found on the Dornsife Career Pathways website as well as most other podcasting websites). In his personal life John is an all-around lover of all things nerdy.

Caroline Fraissinet, Ed.D, is the Director of Internship Programs and Employer Relations with USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. She earned her doctorate in Organizational Change and Leadership from USC Rossier, with a dissertation focused on the challenges low-income college students face in gaining entertainment industry experience due to the prevalence of unpaid internships. In her free time, Caroline enjoys reading, watching TV/movies, and spending time with her husband and two cats.

Sinan Kircova is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate specializing in comparative politics. His ongoing projects center around censorship under authoritarian regimes, the confluence of religion and politics, and secularization. His regional focus is the Middle East with special emphasis on the politics of Israel and Turkey. Before starting his Ph.D. he earned his bachelor’s degree in Sociology with a minor in Politics from Bogazici University and his master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

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McKayla Harris is an open source intelligence and investigation professional working in the private sector as a Threat Intelligence Analyst. At USC she double majored in International Relations and Russian Language, studied abroad in Saint Petersburg, and spent two of her summers in Washington DC; the first for USC’s Problems Without Passports: Weapons of Mass Destruction program and the second interning at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. Her graduate education was completed at Middlebury Institute of International Studies where she received her master’s degree in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies, specialized in Financial Crime Management, received an analyst certification in crypto tracing and continued her studies of Russian language. She has experience working in breaking news intelligence, countering far right extremism, fraud prevention, and cyber intelligence.

At USC, Ryan’s research explores how neighborhood environments shape adolescent socioemotional and brain development. With expertise in developmental psychology, emotion regulation, and prosocial behavior, Ryan examines how social contexts influence youth outcomes, including neural processes underlying self-regulation and decision-making. Learning an additional language has been pivotal in expanding his ability to collaborate across disciplines, engage with diverse communities, and access a broader range of research.

Mr. is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese Language at USC, specializing in second language pedagogy for Mandarin. He earned an M.A. in Chinese Foreign Language Pedagogy from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and has extensive experience living, studying, and working in Taiwan. At USC, he spearheaded the development of the Language Exchange Program, facilitating connections between foreign language learners and international students. His research focuses on the integration of social media into language curricula, the advancement of Chinese literacy, the implementation of project-based learning, and the development of standards-based curriculum.

www.sli.pitt.edu

Kathleen Manukyan directs the University of Pittsburgh’s Summer Language Institute, which offers intensive courses in 11 languages of Eastern and Central Europe and the Near East at Pitt’s campus, five summer study abroad programs, and post-program internships in several languages. During the academic year, she teaches Russian language and literature at Pitt’s Slavic department, specializing in pronunciation. Her research interests encompass SLA, phonetics, music and dance, and adaptations of Gogol’s works to other media.

Andre Martinez graduated from USC in 2022, studying International Relations with a focus on National Security. Originally recruited by the CIA, his most recent assignment was with the White House Travel Office as a Trip Lead and Press Lead.   He has served 3 Presidents; 2 Vice Presidents, 2 Governors, and a Congressman.  He is also a published editorial photographer with assignments throughout Latin America.

Kate is an experienced business leader with experience leading go-to-market teams across publicly traded companies such as Square, Amazon and Apple and VC-backed companies such as Away and Republic. Most recently she has worked as a marketing consultant and interim CMO for EU and Middle Eastern startups including ManyPets and Stryde, after serving as both CMO of Seedrs and SVP Marketing of Republic, the American unicorn that acquired Seedrs, from 2022 – 2024.
Prior to Seedrs, she helped UK grocery delivery start up Weezy successfully exit to Getir and served as the European GM for Away Travel. Before moving into VC-backed startups, she spent almost 15 years at blue chip companies leading product launches, geographic expansions, brand transformations and more. At Square she was a part of the European launch team and led both marketing and business operations through 100% YoY growth for three years. At Amazon, she was a part of the launch team for AmazonFresh internationally, leading marketing in UK and advising DE and JP; lead European marketing for Amazon Media Group, now a multi-billion dollar ad sales business; and served as a senior product manager for Kindle, expanding across Europe. After completing her BA in French at USC, she began her career at Air France as an agent at IAD airport (mostly for the cheap flights to Europe), proof positive that the road to FAANG can run through many paths.
She has deep experience in building global teams and organisations, managing through both growth and downcycles, P&L ownership, and building brands that are impactful and differentiated in the market. She received her MBA from HEC Paris and her BA in French from USC. An American by birth and Brit by choice, she currently splits her time between London and Yorkshire with her husband and basset hound.

IACCW

Genny Nevoso is the Executive Director of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce West (IACCW), where she drives initiatives to strengthen economic and trade relations between Italy and the Western United States. Under her leadership, the Chamber has expanded its network, launched high-impact trade missions, and developed key collaborations with industry leaders and institutions. Genny’s leadership has been featured in Forbes, where she discussed the impact of the pandemic on Italian food exports, and in the Insider’s Guide to Abruzzo Food and Wine. She has also shared insights on media platforms as well as on national news channels.

Aleksandra (Sasha) Pchelintseva is a PhD candidate in Slavic Languages and Literatures at USC, where she teaches Russian as part of her graduate program. Before joining USC, she was an instructor at École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris, teaching Russian at various levels. Her appointment at ENS was facilitated by her proficiency in French, which she developed during her BA and MA studies at Moscow State University.

Lauren Petroff graduated from USC in 2024 with a degree in Political Science. She studied French, Spanish, and Polish during her time there and she is currently living in northern Spain teaching English at a high school. Her ultimate goal is to go to law school and work in the international law sector.

Azucena graduated from USC in 1996 with a MA in Spanish. She also has a Licenciatura in Spanish Philology from the University of Valencia, Spain. She is a professional interpreter/translator, certified by the Judicial Council of California, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, and the American Translators Association. She has also taught Spanish, and Medical and Legal Interpreting at USC, UCLA, and CSUN. She currently provides interpreting services for the Courts, professional conferences, and the entertainment industry.

USC Alumnus David Rodriguez leverages his extensive experience in luxury property management and sales in his remote work, which allows him to enjoy living in Colombia and regularly apply his Spanish skills. His passion for the Spanish language has opened doors both professionally and personally, and he hopes his story will inspire others to pursue learning a second language.

Career Advisor, DCP

Jamie Schlegel is currently a Program Analyst at the Acacia Center for Justice’s Unaccompanied Children Program (UCP) which provides legal representation to children across the United States. Prior to joining Acacia, Jamie interned at the Enabling Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) where she researched and translated Arabic media for a weekly publication of the Iraq Security and Humanitarian Monitor. Jamie graduated from the University of Southern California in 2021 with a BA in International Relations and a minor in Arabic. She is now based in Washington, DC.

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A first-generation Chinese American born in Taiwan and raised in California, joined the Foreign Service in 2008 and most recently served as the Public Affairs Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Surabaya, Indonesia. From 2019 to 2021, he pioneered the role of Strategic Designer for Interactive Media and Games at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, integrating video games into State Department policy and programs. His career has spanned public affairs, cultural diplomacy, and consular work across Malaysia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka/Maldives, with a focus on technology, sports diplomacy, and interagency collaboration. Joshua holds degrees from Northwestern and Georgetown, speaks multiple languages, and lives in the San Gabriel Valley with his wife and two children.

Named one of Glamour Magazine’s 2008 Top Ten College Women of the Year, pianist Pauline Yang is honored to serve as a U.S. Arts Envoy for the U.S. Department of State and has been sent on public diplomacy tours to U.S. Missions in Japan, Ethiopia, Portugal, Taiwan, Nigeria, Palau, as well as Belgium where she performed on behalf of the U.S. Mission to NATO in what became the first-ever solo concert at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. During her undergraduate studies at USC, Pauline was a double major in piano performance and political science, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, and as a Renaissance Scholar. Ms. Yang received a master’s degree in piano performance from USC as well as a master’s degree in international relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Dani Zand graduated from USC in May 2024 with a major in Business Administration and a minor in Spanish. Being half Iranian and half Indian, Dani speaks several languages, including Farsi, Hindi and Spanish. He believes that the more languages a person knows, the better equipped they are to be a well-rounded individual and a successful professional. Dani will soon begin his career as a Business Consultant at KPMG, a global organization that provides audits, taxes and consulting services to other companies.

Dr. David Zarazúa joined USC as full time faculty in 2003. He has worked in the fields of discourse analysis and software development. His current area of interest is the teaching of medical Spanish in academic and healthcare settings. He is the advisor of the USC student organizations Global Medical Brigades and the Community Health Involvement Project (CHIP) and is an active member of the Southern California Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.