L2C Summit
The Center for Languages, Literatures and Cultures (CLLC) is excited to host the inaugural Languages2Careers Summit on Saturday, October 3, 2026 (9:30am-4:30pm), in 180 Hagerty Hall as part of its Languages2Careers initiative. Designed for undergraduate world language majors and minors from Ohio State and institutions across Ohio, this premier event bridges academic language proficiency with professional career success. Language educators and faculty are also welcome to attend the Summit to familiarize themselves with various professionalization resources and gain ideas and tips from guest speakers on preparing language students for their careers.
Attendees will hear an inspiring keynote address from Bradley Hilgert (Columbus Academy), participate in a career readiness workshop co-facilitated by ASC Career Success, engage in dynamic roundtable discussions with industry professionals, and connect directly with hiring organizations, including the FBI, during an interactive networking session. Full-day student attendees will earn a participation certificate. Note that the World Language Skills & Competencies workshop fulfills a graduation requirement for Romance language majors in OSU.
Early registrants (students, language faculty and instructors) from OSU’s regional campuses and non-OSU institutions will receive complimentary campus parking validation.
Agenda
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 9:30am-9:50am | Arrival |
| 10am-12:00pm | World Language Skills & Competencies Workshop |
| 12pm-1:30pm | Lunch Break |
| 1:30pm-1:45pm | Introductory Remarks |
| 1:45pm-2:30pm | Keynote Presentation |
| 2:30pm-3:45pm | Roundtable / Q&A |
| 3:45pm-4:30pm | Network & Mingling |
| 4:30pm | Event concludes |
Keynote Speaker
Bradley Hilgert, Ph.D.
During his time in Ecuador, Hilgert built a career in higher education and the arts, culminating in his appointment as Academic Vice-Rector, the equivalent of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, at the Universidad de las Artes (UArtes) in Guayaquil. In that role he held executive authority over nine undergraduate degree programs, approximately 1,600 students, and 195 faculty; he also directed the Graduate School and coordinated the Master's in Cultural Politics and Arts Management. Alongside his administrative work, Hilgert taught in UArtes's Transversal Department of Critical Theories and Experimental Practices in the Arts and remained active as a researcher and writer.
Hilgert's scholarship and community engagement center on critical pedagogy, decolonial theory, interculturality, and Afro-Latin American cultural heritage. With artist and scholar Ana Carrillo, he co-led a long-running collaborative research and art project in Guayaquil's Nigeria neighborhood, resulting in the book Nigeria: Segunda independencia (UArtes Ediciones, 2018), and he served as principal investigator on a U.S. Embassy Public Diplomacy Grant supporting Afro-Ecuadorian cuisine and cultural heritage. He is the recipient of CLACSO's Pedro Krotsch Prize and Corporación Líderes Para Gobernar's Best Practice in Education award, and has authored over 25 publications, including a chapter on Óscar Romero forthcoming from Leuven University Press and an article on Ignacio Ellacuría in Third World Quarterly.
Hilgert has since returned to Ohio with his family and now teaches Upper School Spanish at Columbus Academy, where he continues to write and publish.
Roundtable Panelists
Robert Heise
Executive Vice President and General Manager of Display Solutions, Inc.
Robert Heise is Executive Vice President and General Manager for Global Display Solutions, an Italian company based near Vicenza, specializing in the design and manufacturing of custom digital signage displays for indoor and outdoor applications worldwide.
With over 35 years in the display electronics industry, Robert has witnessed and contributed to the evolution of digital signage in both technology and application. A technologist at heart, he is passionate about innovative solutions to industry challenges and the advancing technologies that enable them. His international experience includes studying at the University of Bologna for one year, followed by two years working in Italy, and an additional two years working across France, Germany, and The Netherlands. This diverse background has given him a deep appreciation for global markets, cultural nuances in technology deployment, and cross-border collaboration in the signage sector.
As a public speaker, Robert has presented both technical and non-technical topics related to the signage industry across various platforms and stages. He was recently part of a panel at a digital signage symposium discussing the future of display technology.
Yogini Joglekar
Yogini Joglekar (PhD Germanic Languages and Literatures, 2002) is Chief Operations Officer and Founding Faculty at the immersive learning startup Edstutia. She has served in education leadership roles internationally and held visiting faculty positions across three continents, most recently at UC Berkeley Extension. Yogini’s teaching and research areas lie at the intersection of emerging tech, future skills, and business education. She is the co-author of There Is No Box: Rewiring Your Mindset About Learning (2025) and several academic journal articles.
Dr. Patrick Sours
Dr. Patrick Sours is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Engineering for Sustainable Development and Faculty Lead of the Humanitarian Engineering Program at The Ohio State University, where he also directs the Impact Engineering Lab. He leads high-impact experiential learning programs, conducts engineering education research, and teaches courses in Engineering for Sustainable Development, with a focus on developing engineers' sociotechnical competency to address complex global challenges. His research examines how weaving intercultural competency into engineering curricula shapes students' ability to work across cultures and tackle wicked problems, work built on global community and university partnerships including the University of Dodoma in Tanzania and Zamorano University in Honduras.
Jamie Rhein
As the Ohio State University Peace Corps Recruiter, Jamie Rhein’s job is to present Peace Corps as viable and attractive after graduation employment opportunity, particularly for those interested in cross-cultural exchanges and international work. Her firsthand Peace Corps experience comes from her job as a health education facilitator in the Gambia, West Africa and is the president of the Central Ohio Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Association (CORVA). Rhein is also a freelance travel writer and president of the Midwest Travel Writers Association. Say the word “trip” and she is packed. She has traveled to 36 countries (lived in five of them) and has been to every state but Alaska. As a former public and private school teacher, Rhein has taught every grade from kindergarten to 12th, as well as adult level ESL.
Kaitlyn Rabe
Kaitlyn Rabe (BA International Studies and Italian, The Ohio State University 2016 and MSc International Relations, The University of Milan 2019) is currently Lecturer at The Ohio State University, Vice President and General Manager of Mondo Internazionale, and Senior Analyst at Minter Group Ltd. Her professional background spans work with immigrant and refugee communities in the United States and Italy, public health and agricultural development in East Africa, and, currently, comprehensive geopolitical and risk analysis, with a particular focus on natural resource management, food security, and political economy. In particular, her analyses have informed stakeholders at the European Parliament, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, NATO, the U.S. Department of State, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the UN headquarters in New York. As Vice President of Mondo Internazionale, a cultural diplomacy organization that conducts impartial information-sharing and geopolitical analyses, she is firmly convinced of the essential role of human intelligence and cultural understanding in performing robust risk analyses and supporting productive public debate.
Bridgette Trela
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Assistant Special Agent in Charge Agent Bridgette Trela is a senior leader in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with over two decades of criminal and national security experience. Bridgette currently is the head of FBI Cincinnati Division’s Cyber, Intelligence and Mission Services Branch leading a team of special agents, surveillance specialists, intelligence analysts, forensic cyber experts and linguists to mitigate, disrupt, and dismantle the top threats facing the American people through intelligence analysis and investigation.
Bridgette started her career at the FBI Laboratory where she became a certified forensic examiner analyzing evidence from federal, state, and international law enforcement partners, writing technical laboratory reports, publishing scientific research, and testifying as an expert witness. After a decade in the Lab, Bridgette accepted an appointment to the FBI Academy where she graduated as a Special Agent. As a Special Agent, she dismantled large scale criminal enterprises in complex corporate fraud, human trafficking and public corruption investigations as well as mitigating Counter terrorism and WMD threats on the Joint Terrorism Taskforce.
Bridgette was later promoted to Supervisory Special Agent, at FBI Headquarters and the Washington Field Office, where she led several domestic and international programs aimed at mitigating criminal, foreign counterintelligence, counterterrorism, cyber and WMD threats. She has been on deployments for the FBI in 12 countries, almost every U.S. State, and three U.S. territories. She has been honored by numerous awards including United States Attorney’s Office Agent of the Year in Major Crimes and Financial Crimes, FBI’s Thomas Duhadway Humanitarian Award and FBI Director’s Award for Excellence in Innovation.
Bridgette holds a Bachelor of Science from The College of William and Mary and a Master of Forensic Sciences from George Washington University. She is the proud mother of two college-aged daughters and when not at work, she loves to be outside, particularly hiking.
World Language Skills & Competencies Workshop Facilitators
Addie Cheney
Addie specializes in working with graduate students and postdocs in their career exploration and planning.
As the Director of Career Communities, Addie will lead outreach efforts and provide leadership in initiatives integrating employers and alumni into student career-related support services. These services include skill development training, consultation, resource development, and enhanced connections with hiring organizations and/or PhD alumni. Addie will also establish partnerships across campus to support and co-create an ideal future service structure to help graduate students transition into a wide range of professional practices.
Janice Aski
Janice M. Aski is Professor of Italian and Romance Linguistics. She also serves as Director for the CLLC. She specializes in world language pedagogy and historical Italian/Romance linguistics. She is a co-author of the first-year Italian textbook, Avanti!, and the Italian historical linguistics monograph, Iconicity and analogy in language change. She has published a variety of articles in both of her fields of expertise. Her research in world language pedagogy has explored topics, such as testing, reading and how grammar practice activities reflect the most current research in second language acquisition, but her current focus is on revising language curricula to include the development of Intercultural Competence. Her publications in historical Italian/Romance linguistics focus on the social, pragmatic, and cognitive aspects of phonological and morphological change. She is the recipient of the Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring, the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, and Colleges of the Arts & Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award.