The American Name Society is pleased to announce the 2019 Slate of Nominees for open ANS Officer positions. During the ANS annual meeting in New York, NY in January 2019, the Slate of Nominees will be formally presented to the ANS membership for the election process. The final report of the nominating committee can be downloaded here.
Vice President: Ms. Laurel Sutton (Catchword Branding, USA)
Laurel is one of the founders of Catchword, an onomastic firm that develops product and company names for enterprises ranging from Fortune 100 to VC-backed Silicon Valley start-ups. She became a namer while in the PhD Linguistics program at UC Berkeley. She helps to run the LSA’s Special Interest Group, Linguistics Beyond Academia. She is computer literate and very familiar with WordPress, HTML, and social media platforms. An active member of the ANS, she has published her onomastic research in NAMES, presented at ANS conferences, and has co-organized several special panels with ANS President Nick: “Onomastics Beyond Academia” and “Sex, Gender, and Names”. Since being elected serve as the ANS Information Officer, she has made tremendous contributions to modernize ANS operations. She has significantly expanded the communications capacities of the ANS website; coordinated and supervised the development and implementation of the new online registration and subscription portal of the ANS website; and helped to strengthen the presence of the ANS in social media via daily news postings, answering inquiries from the general public, and responding to calls from journalists on names in the news. She has also been integral in designing, implementing, and coordinating the new Special Interest Group activities via Facebook.
ANS Treasurer: Saundra Wright (California State University, Chico, USA)
Saundra is a Professor of Linguistics at California State University, Chico, and the Associate Chair of the Department of English. Her most recent research focuses on binomial name pairs, names in professional contexts, titles of address, and the biases associated with different address forms in English. As long-time member of the ANS and ANS-EC, she has served as a Member-at-Large and was unanimously elected to the position of Treasurer to succeed Dr. Michael McGoff, after he stepped down in the Winter of 2018. Since then, she has facilitated the establishment of a new business bank account for the Society; assisted in the smooth transfer of the Society’s financial records; and advised in the development of a new system of payment for membership journal subscriptions, membership renewals, and membership dues. She has also supervised the timely payment of the few expenses our Society has incurred in the academic year 2018-2019.
Member-at-large: Dr. Jan Tent (Macquarie University Sydney, AUSTRALIA)
Jan is an internationally recognized expert in toponymy. The author of nearly 100 academic publications and a regular media consultant on place naming in Australia and New Zealand, he is also a reviewer for World Englishes, the Australian Journal of Linguistics; and is the Director of the Australian National Placenames Survey. In addition to these duties outside of the ANS, Jan also has an excellent record of service within the ANS. Aside from his editorial duties for NAMES, he has chaired the Emerging Scholar Award Committee; made regular contributions to the news items segment of the new ANS website; served as an abstract reviewer for the annual ANS conference; co-organized a special issue of NAMES; and is an active member of the NAMES Editorial Board.
Information Officer: Dr. Evgeny Shokhenmayer (e-Onomastics)
Evgeny is the Assistant Secretary and Web Officer for the International Council of Onomastic Sciences (ICOS). In addition, he is the brainchild and the manager of one of the most popular internet sites for name studies, e-Onomastics. Within the American Name Society, Evgeny has used his knowledge of onomastics and website design as our elected Facebook Coordinator for the ANS SIG on Place Names. Within this capacity, he has published hundreds of posts which have included photos, videos, and links on issues of toponymic interest. Through his energetic media presence, the SIG group has grown to reach more than 50 members.
Facebook SIG Coordinator for Place Names: Dr. Sharon N. Obasi (University of Nebraska Kearney, USA)
Sharon is a Behavioral Neuroscientist developing scholarship in the area of self-identity, social identity and the influence of identity on the articulation of policy and the implementation of programs for vulnerable populations in rural locales. She has been a regular presenter at the ANS annual conference, has been appointed to join the new Editorial Board of NAMES.