Team

Crow PIs are guided by our advisory board and work with a wonderful team of undergraduate and graduate researchers (below).

Principal investigators

Dr. Ashley JoEtta is Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington, Bothell. She is was an American Association of University Women (AAUW) Dissertation Fellow for 2018-2019. Her research focuses on the use of both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze how L1 and L2 writers engage in disciplinary-specific writing tasks in engineering.

Dr. Shelley Staples is Associate Professor of English Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at University of Arizona. She currently serves as Director of Second Language Writing for the University’s Writing Program. Her research focuses on corpus analyses of speech and writing, particularly for applications to student writing. Her work has recently been published in journals such as Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Written Communication, TESOL Quarterly, and Applied Linguistics.

Dr. Michelle McMullin (@chellemcmullin) is Assistant Professor of English at North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on how attention to human, technical, and institutional infrastructures can help diverse groups of stakeholders respond to complex problems to build more resilient communities. She brings this work to Crow by working on grant funding, developing best practices, and researching the effectiveness of the team’s (digital and human) infrastructure.

Dr. Adriana Picoral (@adrianapicoral) is an assistant professor of data science in the University of Arizona’s School of Information, and an affiliated faculty member in the interdisciplinary graduate program of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching also at the University of Arizona. Her research draws from corpus and computational linguistics to shed light on multilingual language use, acquisition, and development. She has extensive experience in collecting, processing, maintaining, and analyzing language data, both in academic settings and in industry. She is also the founder of R-Ladies Tucson, which is part of a world-wide organization to promote gender diversity in the R community, and an ambassador for Women in Data Science (WiDS), an initiative that aims to inspire and educate data scientists worldwide.

Dr. Aleksandra Swatek is an Assistant Research Professor at the Scholarly Communication Research Group at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland??. She obtained her Ph.D. in English / Second Language Studies program at Purdue University, where she specialized in writing research. Her projects encompass the areas of second language writing, corpus linguistics, and English for Academic Purposes. In Crow, she works on data collection, processing, and research on reporting verb use by international first year writers.

Dr. Hadi Banat is an assistant professor in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and he is also directing their ESL program. His research lies at the intersections of Writing Studies, TESOL, and Writing Program Administration. In Crow, he works in infrastructure development, grant funding, event planning, and writing research. For a detailed overview of his work, please visit hadibanat.com and writeic.org.

Dr. Bradley Dilger (@cbdilger) is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University. His research on writing programs, networks, and transfer has been published in the Journal of Business & Technical Communication, CCC, Writing Program Administration, and multiple edited collections. With Jeff Rice, he edited From A to <A>: Keywords of Markup, winner of the 2011 Computers & Composition book award. Bradley is a year-round bike commuter, husband of Erin, and dad to Madelyn and Amelia.

Dr. Randi Reppen is Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESL at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff AZ. She uses corpus linguistics better understand how language varies in different contexts of use, and how that can be used to inform materials development and instruction. Dr. Reppen has published numerous articles, chapters, and books, with recent publications in the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics and International Journal of Learner Corpus Research.

Team members

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.

Hannah Brostrom is a sophomore at Purdue University studying Professional Writing and Computer Science. She is interested in consumer technology and user experience research, and hopes to be a technology journalist in the future. She is involved with several creative writing publications, and in her spare time likes to play guitar and cook with her roommates.

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 🙂

Jianfen Chen is a third-year doctoral student at Purdue University, where she teaches first-year composition. Jianfen’s research focuses on public rhetoric, comparative rhetoric, and professional and technical communication. Jianfen received her MS in Technical Communication from NC State where she taught Communication for Business and Management to undergraduates as part of the Professional Writing program before being admitted to Purdue. She was recently selected as Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative Graduate Fellow for 2020-21.

Nina Conrad is a PhD student in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. Her research interests include second-language writing, academic literacies, and postsecondary students’ use of proofreading and literacy brokering. She has an MA in TESL and currently teaches Foundations Writing courses at the UA. She also enjoys gardening, baking, and organizing board game and trivia nights.

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.

Ryan Day is a senior at Purdue University studying Civil Engineering and Political Science and Spanish. He has served in cross disciplinary research groups while at Purdue, including in the Building Water Systems group and Transculturation group. He is also currently a writing tutor with the Purdue Writing Lab and President of Purdue Science Olympiad. In the future, he plans to attend law school and continue combining humanities and natural science experiences in a legal profession. He spends his spare time skiing, scuba diving, and traveling with friends and family.

Abby Elkin is a senior at Purdue University studying Professional Writing with a minor in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and she has an Associate of Science degree from Ivy Tech. In the future she would love to write books while traveling. In her spare time, she enjoys playing with her dogs, playing video games, and crocheting.

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.

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.

Larissa Goulart is a PhD candidate at Northern Arizona University. Her research interests include second language writing and register variation. She has a MA in ELT from Warwick University. She is currently a research assistant for Dr. Doug Biber and Dr. Randi Reppen. She also likes cats, tea, knitting and winning trivia.

Jhonatan Henao-Muñoz, Lic, M. A. (@ProfeJhon) is a M. A. candidate in French Linguistics and Second Language Learning & Teaching at the University of Arizona. His research interests are related to Romance Languages as Additional Languages, Translation and TELL. Currently, he is working on Corpus Linguistics, specifically on corpus building focused on Romance Languages Learners Texts. Jhon works mostly with Spanish and French as L2/Ln. Outside academia, he likes to workout, take pictures of flowers and nature, and to eat with friends. He is a food enthusiast.

Dr. Ge Lan is an assistant professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include corpus linguistics, second language writing, EAP and ESP. As a five-year old “Crowbird”, he has been involved in data cleaning and script developing/modifying in Crow. In his free time, Ge Lan just started a plan of cardio workout in 2021 and hope he can keep it up!

Vivek Natarajan is a Junior at Purdue University studying Computer Science with a minor in Math and Linguistics. His current interests include Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. In addition to English, he also speaks Spanish, Hindi, Tamil and some Sanskrit and Telugu, due to living in India for 6 years. Outside of school, he’s an avid boulderer, and spends his free time outside trying to find the hardest possible way to climb up steep rock faces.

Dr. Aleksey Novikov recently earned his Ph.D. candidate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) from the University of Arizona. His academic interests include register variation, L2 Russian syntactic and morphological complexity development, corpus-informed pedagogy and Data-driven Learning (DDL), course design, Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) and more generally, usage-based approaches to L2 language learning and teaching in English and Russian.

Dr. Emily Palese recently earned her Ph.D. from the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program at the University of Arizona. Her research and work centers around curriculum development, instructional design, and teacher education for EAL (English as an Additional Language) teaching contexts. She is currently the Graduate Assistant Director of Global Foundations Writing at the University of Arizona, and she has previously taught English in the Peace Corps (Philippines).

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. Nicole has also taught undergraduate composition, including Technical and Professional Writing, in both online and in-person formats. Before that, she taught English for Academic Purposes in the U.S., Japan, the Netherlands, and Spain. 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.

Anna Shura is a junior at Purdue University studying Professional Writing and Creative Writing with a minor in Global Liberal Arts Studies. In the future, she plans to work in the publishing industry or creative marketing. Anna is excited to have been accepted to study at the University of Oxford in Spring 2023, but until then, she remains busy on campus where she serves as the President of the Professional Writing Association and the Vice President of the Student English Association. In her free time, she enjoys playing violin in Purdue’s Symphony Orchestra, cooking and baking, and painting.

Dr. Ji-young Shin recently earned her Ph.D. from the Second Language Studies/ESL program in the English Department at Purdue University. Prior to joining Purdue, Ji-young was involved in various professional experiences in the field of English education in South Korea, working as a high school English teacher, textbook writer, national exam writer, and online national English writing curriculum developer. Based on her unique professional diversity, Ji-young researches issues in corpus linguistics, second language writing, and language testing/assessment.

Hui Wang is a first year Ph.D. student in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) at University of Arizona. She is interested in supporting linguistically diverse learners’ language development. Her teaching experience inspired her to pursue research that explores second language writing and corpus linguistics. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking, traveling and taking care of aquarium life.

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.

Shelton Weech is a PhD student at Purdue University. His research focuses on technical and professional communication, environmental communication, and public rhetoric. He received his MA from Brigham Young University in 2007. Before he returned to begin his PhD, he worked with Microsoft and the Microsoft Partner Network. He teaches technical writing and is currently the professional writing mentor at Purdue.

Ali Yaylali is a PhD candidate in the Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies Department at the University of Arizona. Before starting the graduate program, he taught ESL and Turkish in the US for several years. His academic interests are second language acquisition, English learners’ science writing development, corpus pedagogy in language classrooms, content area and disciplinary literacy development, and discourses of education in the media.

Former Crowbirds