FEATURE
Brigid Byrnes
AI deployment director at Welocalize
It feels poetic to me to end up being included in the women’s issue of MultiLingual magazine as my life’s biggest passions up until this point have been language and supporting women. I had the tremendous privilege to grow up quadrilingual due to moving about the world throughout my childhood, after which my fascination for language led me to study linguistics at UPenn with some of the all-time greats, including Bill Labov and Gillian Sankoff. I then spent several years in refugee resettlement, where I was a case manager for refugee women, families, and eventually unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, before eventually returning to linguistics as a career. I carry with me the stories and incredible strength of the women I encountered in the refugee world and remain incredibly grateful for the impact, however small, I was able to have in that field.
ACCOLADES
She is organized, flexible, and her ideas are always fresh — finding solutions has become one of her “hobbies,” as she is the key every time an issue occurs. She definitely deserves to be mentioned.
I voted for Brigid because she has been an incredible mentor for me, both from a professional and personal point of view. She manages to combine knowledge, professionalism, empathy and creativity in a unique fashion — the sign of a true leader and one who will surely go very far.
Brigid Byrnes is inarguably one of the strongest candidates on this list. She is a natural leader, and an inspiration to anyone who works with her. She is a true underdog candidate and someone the localization world should have a keen eye on.
I re-entered the language industry via bilingual chatbot QA and then language acceptance testing, while at the same time working double as a bilingual counselor at a women’s health clinic, during a time when protecting women’s autonomy has only increased in its criticalness and urgency. I’ve since had the immense honor of being one of the builders of the AI enablement service line at Welocalize, where I’ve served as a senior language engineer, manager of language engineering, and now as the AI deployment director. I am eternally grateful to my team and to everyone who took a chance on me early in my career, especially Olga Beregovaya and Aaron Schliem. I’m proud to be a part of one of the fastest growing industries that exists and am in constant awe of the folks, particularly women, I get to learn from and work with. I can’t wait to see what comes next for the field, my place in it, and the next generation of women in this ever-changing subject and world.
Brigid is a great example of a woman — and a very young woman — who started her career at Welocalize as a QA tester, and just within two years took over language engineering for a major Welocalize practice: data creation and annotation. She achieved a leadership role within just two years, another success story of a young woman who developed her career and became a solid leader very fast.
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