Alumni@Work

Hannah Gourgey received her Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Cultural Studies from UT-Austin in 2000. She has bridged work in higher education, public and workforce education systems change in Central Texas. She has held leadership roles in regional community-based organizations and currently serves as an independent consultant for the Aspen Institute on a statewide initiative in support of disconnected young adults and for E3 Alliance on a national Gates Foundation initiative in higher education transformation. She occasionally teaches graduate courses locally and has published in her fields of communication, education, and workforce development. Hannah also writes creatively when time allows.

Gigi Taylor received a PhD in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999 and an MA in Applied Anthropology from University of North Texas in 2019. She currently works as a Cultural Anthropologist in the strategic research division of Indeed in Austin. Gigi conducts cultural analyses on the hiring practices of US organizations. She has represented the discipline of consumer anthropology at panels at SXSW Interactive as well at both academic and industry conferences.

Thomas Czerniawski received his PhD in civil engineering from UT-Austin in 2020. He is currently working as an assistant professor at Arizona State University, where he does research and teaches in the fields of reality capture, computer vision, and spatial computing.

Natalie Sfeir received her Master’s of Science in Speech Language Pathology from UT Austin in 2021. She is currently working as a Speech Language Pathologist at Methodist Healthcare System and Main Methodist Hospital, where she diagnoses and treats medically complex patients with cognitive-communication, swallowing, and motor speech disorders.

Lakeya Omogun received her PhD in Language and Literacy Studies from UT Austin in 2021. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture at The University of Washington. Her research explores the role of language, literacy, including digital literacies, in Black African immigrant youth identity constructions and negotiations across school, community, and digital spaces. She teaches graduate level and courses that focus on expanded understandings of language, literacy, and culture. She also prepares pre-service teachers to attend to sociocultural factors in their literacy teaching. Lakeya is the 2022 recipient of the Outstanding Dissertation Award for the Bilingual Education Research SIG of the American Educational Research Association.