GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN — Brian Sietsema confirms pronunciations and answers questions about word roots for spellers at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. He also worked as a pronunciation editor at Merriam-Webster in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Sietsema is a linguist and a Greek Orthodox priest. He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and attended a Dutch Reformed Christian school. In second grade, he participated in a spelling bee, where he spelled the word "of" as "U-V." "I spelled it U-V, and of course, I was wrong," Sietsema said.

In third grade, Sietsema purchased three books for 50 cents each at a garage sale. One of these books was a collection of Edgar Allan Poe stories titled "Masterpieces of Mystery." He read Poe's story "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" and encountered the word "akimbo." Sietsema did not find the definition of "akimbo" in his family dictionary, classroom dictionaries, or school library dictionaries. He located the definition during his college years. "For years, I didn't know what this word meant," Sietsema said. "I credit that puzzle with getting me into dictionaries and being curious about etymology."

While in high school, Sietsema took a nuclear chemistry class at a local junior college. He later enrolled in the school of engineering at the University of Michigan before switching his major to studies in religion. At the university, he studied ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek, Dutch, Swedish, and modern Hebrew. He continued for a fifth year to study linguistics, German, ancient Aramaic, and modern Arabic.

Sietsema attended MIT for graduate school, working with Morris Halle. His dissertation, completed in 1989, proposed that the division of words and phrases into metrical units can predict the placement of high and low tones. He demonstrated these findings in the tonal patterns of four Bantu languages spoken in Tanzania. While at MIT, he also cross-registered at Harvard to study French and Ugaritic. "If I could relive them, I would empty out my bank accounts to do so," Sietsema said regarding his four years at MIT.

After graduating from MIT, Sietsema worked as a visiting assistant professor of phonology at the University of Michigan for one year. He earned an award for excellence in teaching based on student reviews during his first semester there. Regarding his work at Merriam-Webster, he said it was kind of coming home to old-school philology.

In 2025, Sietsema presided at the Holy Friday evening service at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Lansing, Michigan. During the service, he sprinkled the congregation with rose-scented water. "It's like a one-sided water fight in church," he said. The service concluded with a procession where a symbolic tomb was carried around the outside of the church.