Ashley Townsend

Experience

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  Myler Disability

  Aug 2010 - Dec 2012

  Legal Assistant

  Worked with Social Security Administration offices nation-wide, as well as Offices of Disability Adjudication and Review to ensure our client's were getting their Disability applications processed to hearings.

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  Utah Valley University

  Jun 2013 - Jun 2014

  Assistant to the Advisors in the School of the Arts

  Worked as office admin scheduling appointments for students, and assisting the advisers with miscellaneous tasks.

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  Wall Written

  Jul 2014 - Jan 2016

  Assistant Production Manager

  Worked with a production team to process client orders, and to ensure product was produced and shipped in a timely manner.

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  Healthy Herbal Nutrients

  Jan 2016 - Mar 2016

  Assistant Office Manager

  Processed product orders. Face to face customer care. Ordered materials for use in the production area.

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  University of Utah College of Humanities

  Jan 2024 - Apr 2024

  Researcher

  I was encouraging accent adaptation through the use of infographics. I focused on how listeners often struggle more to understand the speech of non-native speakers compared to native speakers. This can lead to harmful consequences for non-native speakers, such as greater difficulties securing housing or employment because people sometimes attribute the challenge in understanding to negative traits of the speaker or their speech itself. However, research shows that a listener's ability to comprehend unfamiliar accents is also influenced by their own attitudes and feelings toward non-native speakers and their speech.To address this, I was experimentally examining whether educating listeners about the harms caused by biases against non-native speakers can actually increase their ability to understand non-native speech. My approach involved using infographics to raise awareness of this issue and the biases involved. The goal was to see if this type of educational intervention using infographics could help listeners overcome accent biases that can disadvantage non-native speakers. Show less