Our Team

Dilara Avci

is a first-year doctoral student in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching program at the University of Arizona. She completed her Master’s Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language program at the University of Arizona in 2023. She has taught English across diverse backgrounds and age levels including K-12 and college-level English Composition. Her research interests are second language writing and material design with the application of innovative approaches such as genre pedagogy and corpus linguistics.

Mariana Centanin Bertho

is a PhD student in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program at the University of Arizona. She teaches Portuguese at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Her research interests include multilingualism in its sociolinguistics and pedagogical perspectives, teaching Portuguese as an L3, and teaching pronunciation. She has also been working with Teletandem interactions and aims to develop corpus-based research on students’ oral production.

Sarah Buwick

is a senior at Purdue University studying Professional Writing with minors in Communication and Creative Writing. Her career interests include editing, publishing, media writing, and graphic design. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, writing fiction, watching football and baseball, and keeping up with the latest in film and TV.

Bernard Brefo Cassie

is a second-year MA TESL student at the University of Arizona. He has taught first-year writing classes at the University of Ghana and is currently a graduate teaching assistant in the writing program at the University of Arizona. His research interests include corpus linguistics, gamification of L2 learning materials and second language writing.

Chen Chen

is a PhD student in East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona. Her research interests include second language acquisition of Chinese, corpus linguistics, and sociolinguistics. She hopes to learn more computational techniques. In her spare time, she likes to watch funny dog and cat videos.

Dr. Nina Conrad

received her PhD in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. She is a Design Researcher for Amplified by Design, a UX design consultancy based in Portland, OR. She enjoys drawing on her background as a writing instructor and researcher to conduct participatory design research with a focus on the role of language and content in the user experience.

Anh T. Dang

is a Master’s student in the English Applied Linguistics program at the University of Arizona. Her research interests are second language writing, multilingualism with the focus on using multilingual resources to assist students in university composition courses, World Englishes and corpus linguistics. She is currently teaching Foundations Writing courses at the UA. In her free time, she enjoys reading, cooking, watching Korean dramas and taking pictures of her cat, Miumiu.

Gözde Durgut

is a PhD student in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program at the University of Arizona. She holds an MA in TESOL and Applied Linguistics, and is currently teaching First-year Composition at the UofA. Her research interests include L2 writing, corpus linguistics, the applications of AI in language learning and education, as well as learner and user experience research in SLA contexts. Other general areas of interest include human language technology and the intersection of linguistics and computation.

Dr. Shaohua Fang

is the Ross-Lynn Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English at Purdue University. He earned his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh in 2023. Dr. Fang’s research interests lie in psycholinguistics and second language acquisition, employing a range of methodologies, including experimental and computational approaches. At Purdue, he is involved in multiple collaborative projects with researchers from diverse fields, including our friends in the ExLing lab.

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Mark Fullmer

is a Principal Software Developer/Analyst at the University of Texas at Austin. He has previously taught composition & creative writing at the university and community college levels, as well as internationally as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines.

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Dr. Wendy Jie Gao

is a lecturer at the College of Foreign Languages and Literature, Fudan University, Shanghai. Her research interests include language testing, L2 speaking assessment, and English for academic purposes.

Dr. Larissa Goulart

is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Montclair State University. Her research interests include second language writing and register variation. She earned her PhD from Northern Arizona University and has a MA in ELT from Warwick University. She also likes cats, tea, knitting and winning trivia.

Adrienne Henson

is a junior at North Carolina State University majoring in English with a concentration in literature and minoring in Rhetoric, Writing and Professional Communication. She has career interests in copywriting, editing and technical writing. In her free time she enjoys reading, journaling, fiction writing, and going to coffee shops with her friends.

Chloe Hunt

is a junior at North Carolina State University majoring in English with a concentration in Professional Writing and Rhetoric. She is drawn to editing and strengthening her writing skills in any area she can get her hands on. Outside of her research interests, she spends her time watching movies, cooking, baking, and listening to music.

Naomi Islas

is a senior at Purdue University studying Professional Writing with two minors in Organizational Leadership and Law and Society, and is also employed for Purdue Dining and Culinary. In the future, she plans to continue her education in the law and society field. In her spare time, Naomi enjoys writing, reading, and collecting vinyl records.

Alona Kladieva

is a PhD student in the SLAT program and a teaching assistant in English Composition at the University of Arizona. Her research interests include second-language writing, genre-based pedagogy and gameful learning. She taught General English and ESP to professional adults and helped students prepare for language proficiency exams in Ukraine. For fun, she likes reading books, listening to true crime podcasts and spending time outdoors.

Dr. Ge Lan

is an eight-year old “Crowbird”, and he is an assistant professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include corpus linguistics, second language writing, translingual writing, EAP and ESP. He has been building a learner corpus of discipline-specific writing in Hong Kong. He plans to merge this learner corpus to the Crow dataset.

Sara Leila

Sara Leila is a second-year Master’s degree in Teaching English as a second language student at the University of Arizona. She received the Fulbright scholarship to teach Arabic at the University of New Hampshire in 2022/2023. She has also taught English as a foreign language for adults for 5 years. Her research interests are second language writing, corpus based pedagogy, and technology enhanced learning.

Dr. Emily Palese

is a graduate from the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program at the University of Arizona. As as the Assistant Director of International Foundations Writing (IFW) and a Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona, her work includes curriculum development, instructional support, program assessment, and teaching courses within English Applied Linguistics. In her free time, she enjoys running, gardening, playing her with dogs, and caring for her pet goats and chickens.

Dr. Nicole Schmidt

a graduate of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT), is an Instructional Designer for Digital Learning at the University of Arizona. Her current work focuses on course development for UA Global’s microcampus program. In her spare time, Nicole loves to visit places she’s never been, read mainly historical fiction, experiment with baking, and spend time out of doors, preferably near water.

Dr. Ji-young Shin

is Assistant Professor of Language Studies and Education Studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her primary research interests are language testing/assessment, corpus linguistics, educational technology, and research methodology. Ji-young’s research has been informed by her various professional roles as a former high school teacher, textbook writer, national exam writer, and national English writing curriculum developer.

Hui Wang

is a Ph.D. student in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) at University of Arizona. She works as a Graduate Assistant Director and also Graduate Teaching Associate in the Writing Program, teaching Foundations Writing Courses at the UofA. Her research interests include second language writing, corpus linguistics, genre-based pedagogy, Technology-enhanced Language Learning (TELL), and teacher education. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, traveling and playing with her dog Denali.

Yuwei Wang

is a second year Ph.D. student in Chinese Linguistics, East Asian Studies. She has been graduated from North Eastern Normal University of China with her Bachelor and Master’s degree in Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. She had former teaching experience in China and in Korea as a Chinese instructor, and had been working in Chinese publishing industry for four years. Her research interest is second language acquisition.

Dr. Shelton Weech

is an assistant professor of technical communication at Utah Valley University. His research interests include technical and professional communication, environmental communication, science communication, and public rhetoric. He received his MA in American Literature from Brigham Young University in 2007 and his PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from Purdue University in 2023. He has also worked with Microsoft and the Microsoft Partner Network.

Wei Xu

is a fourth-year PhD candidate in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program at the University of Arizona. She holds an MA degree in TESOL and is currently working as Graduate Assistant Director (GAD) for the International Writing Program, English Department. She has taught ESL courses in various contexts and Foundations Writing at UofA. Her research interests include genre studies, multimodal composition, and second language writing.

Dr. Ali Yaylali

is an assistant professor of education at Eastern Kentucky University. He earned his PhD in Language, Reading, and Culture (LRC) from the University of Arizona. Before starting his doctorate, he taught ESL and Turkish in the U.S. public schools. His academic interests include English learners’ science writing development, corpus pedagogy in language classrooms, content area and disciplinary literacy development, transformative learning frameworks in teacher education, and discourses of education.