SUMMARY
I'm leading an ongoing, multi-year initiative to transform the Department of Linguistics’ digital presence, including a full website redesign, a new social media strategy, and a sustainable content system that amplifies the department’s strengths, connects with its audiences, and supports recruitment, engagement, and fundraising.
THE STARTING POINT
When I stepped in, the department’s digital presence was outdated, disconnected, and underperforming. The website had broken links, stale content, and no clear identity, limiting engagement from students, faculty, alumni, and donors. Many pages were dense with text that hadn't been updated since 2016. One page took 1 minute and 34 seconds to scroll without reading any of its content.
MY ROLE
As the design lead, I drove the vision, strategy, and execution across all phases. I collaborated with faculty, staff, students, advancement, and university marketing to rebuild the website, create a new social media framework, and shape the department’s digital identity for long-term growth.
Presentation I gave to the faculty of the Department of Linguistics on May 2, 2025
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
Stakeholder Prioritization
With multiple stakeholders—prospective and current graduate students, faculty, external researchers, grant officials, and donors—I approached this project with clear prioritization. I worked closely with department leadership to understand immediate needs and long-term goals, ensuring we focused first on areas with the highest impact.
Resources Hub
The department’s graduate programs had grown rapidly, but students lacked the tools and guidance they needed to navigate their degrees effectively. I designed and launched a centralized resources hub to provide critical academic and administrative materials, improving student experience and degree completion.
Revitalizing Research
To attract competitive PhD applicants, strengthen cross-institutional collaborations, and showcase the department’s interdisciplinary work, I prioritized reimagining the outdated research section. I developed a concept to move beyond static subfield lists, designing an engaging, visually led page spotlighting active labs, research themes, and real-world impact.
Phased Roadmap
Rather than treating this as a one-off website overhaul, I built a phased roadmap aligned to the department’s evolving needs. This included short-term wins (improving current student experience), mid-term goals (enhancing research visibility), and long-term strategies (strengthening reputation with external partners and donors).
Collaborative Leadership
Throughout, I partnered with faculty, students, and marketing to ensure the department’s story wasn’t just updated, but amplified. My work helped lay the foundation for sustained digital engagement across multiple audiences.
Before and After shots of the revitalized research section
WHAT'S NEXT?
This is an ongoing project. Current priorities include launching an alumni engagement strategy, a strategic social media revival, remaining website section updates, expanding collaboration with university marketing, and embedding a rhythm of updates that spotlight awards, research, and student success.
THE IMPACT
This strategic overhaul reshaped the department’s digital presence into a platform that lives and breathes. It improved graduate recruitment by spotlighting active research, enhanced student success by centralizing key resources, reduced routine staff workload, and gave faculty stronger tools to promote their work. Together, these changes elevated the department’s reputation, strengthened its competitive edge, and laid the foundation for further improvement and growth.