2022 AAAL Candidates
Vote in the 2022 Election Now (Member Login is Required)
2nd Vice President Candidate
Manka Varghese
University of Washington, College of Education
Language, Literacy and Culture
Manka Varghese is a Professor in Language, Literacy, and Culture and Chair in Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum at the University of Washington’s College of Education. Her research, teaching, and mentoring revolve around developing anti-oppressive frameworks and pedagogies in language teacher education, especially for teachers of multilingual students, which integrate teacher and student intersectional subjectivities and identities, theoretically and practically. Varghese has published widely on examining these intersections in journals such as Educational Researcher, Teachers College Record, and TESOL Quarterly as well as chapters in edited books and has co-edited a number of edited books. Having worked on several projects with this emphasis, she is currently engaged with two projects. As the P.I., the first is a federally funded bilingual teacher preparation grant within the college’s “mainstream” elementary teacher education program which centers bilingualism/multilingualism to prepare all teachers while challenging dominant identities, pedagogies, and structures in teacher education. Drawing on this program, she is also currently the co-P.I. of a research grant that examines the development of novice teachers’ asset based and transformative literacy and scientific discourses and practices. She believes strongly in collaborative work with other colleagues and students; in this vein, she was awarded the university-wide award which recognized her mentoring capacity and abilities in 2020, which has included serving as the chair on the committees for 20 doctoral graduates since she started her career and mentoring colleagues within and outside her institution.
In terms of the overall field, she has developed and contributed to an interdisciplinary approach and knowledge base in language education that integrates historically separate disciplines and which has benefited from her preparation in Educational Linguistics. These include Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), Applied Linguistics, Bilingual Education, Multicultural Education, Social Justice Education, and Critical Pedagogy.
Varghese has been an active member of AAAL since 1995. She has also served on editorial boards and numerous other professional organization committees as well as within her institution. Within AAAL, her formal roles have included serving on the Linguistics Resolution Committee, the ad-hoc Diversity Committee, the Nominating Committee and the Distinguished Public Service Award Committee. Informally, she has been collaborating with others to invite the organization to more fully develop and live its commitments to equity and justice. She aims to encourage more applied linguistic scholars of color, both practitioners and researchers, and those who can contribute to integrating racial and linguistic justice as well as community-driven perspectives to participate in the organization.
Member at Large Candidate
Elizabeth (Liz) R. Miller
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Department of English
I am a Professor in the Department of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. My research has examined the role of identity, ideology, and agency as they relate to the experiences of adult immigrant learners of English. More recently, I have explored the role of agency and emotions in language teacher practice and identity. My work appears in The Modern Language Journal, System, Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, Linguistics and Education, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching Research, among other journals. I have also published a research monograph (2014, Multilingual Matters) as well as numerous chapters in edited books and have co-edited several special issues and edited volumes. I have attended nearly every annual conference since 1999. I regard AAAL as my primary professional society and have become an increasingly active member over the past decade. I have, for example, served as Strand Coordinator five times, twice for the Language and Ideology Research Strand (LID) and three times for the Discourse and Interaction Research Strand (DIS). In 2019-2020, I served on the Nominating Committee. In 2017-2018, I was a member of an Ad Hoc committee charged with assessing diversity in AAAL and with recommending actions to enhance diversity in the AAAL membership and in the research perspectives that are included in conference programs. In 2016-2017, I was a member of an appointed task force charged with creating the “Ethics Guidelines for Teaching in Applied Linguistics,” now adopted by AAAL. These activities along with my regular attendance at the annual business meetings have helped me learn about the goals, values and practices of AAAL. I am committed to creating an inclusive professional society that advances the work of applied linguists around the world as well as in North America.
Fund for the Future of Applied Linguistics (FFAL) Trustee Candidate
Shawn Loewen
Michigan State University
Department of Linguistics, Languages & Cultures
Second Language Studies Program
Dr. Shawn Loewen (PhD, University of Auckland) is Professor at Michigan State University (MSU) in the Applied Linguistics program in the department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures. His research interests include instructed second language acquisition (ISLA), second language interaction and quantitative research methodology. A current interest is the link between ISLA research and researchers, on the one hand, and second language teachers and pedagogy on the other. Another recent research topic is the effectiveness of online and mobile-assisted language learning materials, such as language learning apps and video communication, for language learning.
Shawn joined the American Association for Applied Linguistics as a graduate student when he presented his first paper at the 1998 Seattle conference. He has been a member and regular presenter ever since, except for his time as a member of the Applied Linguistics Association of New Zealand. From 2008 to 2017, he served as an AAAL representative on the executive board of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) both as a member-at-large and as the AILA Research Network Coordinator.
Regarding his nomination as a trustee for AAAL’s Fund for the Future of Applied Linguistics, he says, I believe one of the best ways for me personally to foster positive change in our world is through investing in the lives of students and junior scholars in our field. To that end, I have been a strong financial supporter of scholarship funds for organizations such as AAAL, AILA and MSU’s Second Language Studies program. I have been involved in candidate selection for awards on numerous occasions, and it is gratifying to see how these scholarships help graduate students further both their professional and personal goals. I’m honored to be nominated as a trustee for the Fund for the Future of Applied Linguistics, and I look forward to the possibility of serving and making a difference in young scholars’ lives.
Nominating Committee Member Candidate
Amanda Kibler
Oregon State University
College of Education
Amanda Kibler is a Professor in the College of Education at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, USA. Dr. Kibler’s research focuses on the language and literacy development of multilingual children and adolescents from immigrant backgrounds. She draws upon ecological and critical perspectives and employs longitudinal, qualitative, discourse-analytic, and mixed-methods approaches to investigate issues related to writing, classroom interaction, and teacher practices, among other topics. She has been an active member and presenter at AAAL for more than ten years, and she served on the AAAL Dissertation Award Committee as a member (2018-2020) and Chair (2020-2022). Dr. Kibler has also taken on professional committee service and leadership roles through TESOL’s Professional Research Council and the American Educational Research Association’s Second Language Research SIG, as well as through editorship at the Journal of Second Language Writing. She is committed to drawing upon her knowledge of the field to support the Association’s goals for promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the advancement and dissemination of scholarship and in public outreach.
Nominating Committee Member Candidate
Wenhao Diao
University of Arizona
Department of East Asian Studies
Dr. Wenhao Diao (Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University) is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Studies and the doctoral program of Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) at the University of Arizona. Her research deals with the identities, ideologies, and (in)equalities that are (re)produced and (re)distributed through language learning and teaching in different contexts, with a particular focus on Mandarin Chinese. Her work has appeared on Applied Linguistics, the Modern Language Journal, System, among others. She is also the co-editor of Language learning in Study Abroad: The Multilingual Turn (Multilingual Matters, 2021), and the guest co-editor of a special issue of the L2 Journal entitled Study Abroad in the 21st Century (2016). In addition to her many publications that focus on language learning during study abroad, she is also actively engaged in the research of Chinese language teaching in K-12 contexts across the United States. In her recent projects, she investigates how crosslinguistic and intercultural challenges involved in Chinese language teaching/learning can intersect with social forces of racism and sexism. Her work has received support from the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL), a Title VI Language Resource Center designated by the U.S. Department of Education. She also connects her research with real-life problems; through her teaching and service she utilizes evidence-based principles from the applied linguistics literature to cultivate an appreciation for linguistic and cultural differences among her students and in communities with which she engages. To this end, she has received Fulbright-Hays funding for her project that connects American K-16 educators with their counterparts in China. She was also awarded the inaugural Chatfield Award for Antiracism in Research, Teaching, and Service by the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona for her endeavors to promote diversity within the field of language teaching/learning.
Dr. Diao has been actively involved in service for AAAL members. She has co-coordinated reviews for the SLA strand of three AAAL annual conferences. Her service to AAAL also underscores her belief in promoting diversity and inclusion within AAAL. She was a founding member of the AAAL family-friendliness ad hoc committee, which advocated for equal access to the AAAL conferences for parents – and particularly women with young children. As a junior scholar at the time, she also served on the taskforce committee to revise the AAAL Promotion and Tenure Guidelines in 2019. The resulting guidelines incorporated more diverse criteria of evaluation, such as venues for publication for applied linguists who work on languages other than English, especially the less commonly taught languages.
Nominating Committee Member Candidate
M'Balia Thomas
The University of Kansas
School of Education & Human Sciences
Department of Curriculum & Teaching
My name is M'Balia Thomas. I'm an Assistant Professor of TESOL & Teacher Educator in the School of Education & Human Sciences at the University of Kansas, Department of Curriculum and Teaching. As an Applied Linguist, I research and write on the everyday creativity of speakers considered “nonnative” and “nonstandard” speakers of US Englishes.
My affiliation with AAAL began as a doctoral student in the Interdisciplinary Program in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching (SLAT) at the University of Arizona. I have kept active in the organization by attending AAAL annual conferences and webinars, participating in the AAAL Research Discussion Group, and serving as a Conference Connection Mentor for the 2021 Conference.
I appreciate the move AAAL has made to bring in more diverse voices into its ranks and I am honored to stand for one of the open positions of Nominating Committee Member. I hope to have the opportunity to serve the organization as a member of this Committee.
Nominating Committee Member Candidate
Nihat Polat
Texas State University
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education
I received my Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics/FLE from the University of Texas at Austin in 2007. Currently, I work as a Full Professor and Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the College of Education at Texas State University. I have three research tracks. The first part includes my work on L2 learning, teaching, and assessment. The second area focuses on teacher education, and the last area concerns the education of immigrant populations and English learners. I have published two books, over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, and several book chapters, proceedings, and analytic book reviews. My first book, L2 Learning, Teaching, and Assessment: A Comprehensible Input Perspective, was published in Multilingual Matters in 2016. I also co-authored a book entitled Supporting Muslim Students: A Guide to Understanding the Diverse Issues of Today’s Classrooms. My work has appeared in well-known journals such as Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, Modern Language Journal, Language Learning and Technology, Teachers College Records, among others. Recently, I have published two edited volumes; one with Peter MacIntyre and Tammy Gregersen (Research-Driven Pedagogy: Implications of L2A Theory and Research for the Teaching of Language Skills. New York, NY: 2019, Routledge), and one with Laura Mahalingappa and Hayriye Kayi-Aydar (Preparation of Teachers of English as an Additional Language (EAL) around the World: Research, Policy, Curriculum, and Practice. 2021, Multilingual Matters). I have served as chair of the Applied Linguistics Intersection at TESOL (2015) and on review panels (e.g., Fulbright National Screening Committee, U.S. Department of Education), while also reviewing book manuscripts for publishing companies (e.g., Oxford University Press, Routledge, Palgrave) and almost all major journals in the field. I have served as the consulting editor of the Journal of Educational Research and an editorial board member of TESOL Quarterly (2017-2020).
Nominating Committee Member Candidate
Aline Godfroid
Michigan State University
Department of Linguistics, Languages & Cultures
Second Language Studies Program and TESOL
Aline Godfroid is currently an Associate Professor in Second Language Studies and TESOL at Michigan State University. She has been the secretary of the European Second Language Association (since 2019) and has a well-established record of service to AAAL, including as abstract review Strand Coordinator for Language and Cognition (2017), which she is keen to build on in her new role in the Nominating Committee. Aline could bring to the Association an international perspective with strong ties to applied linguistic networks in Europe and a commitment to continue and expand on the cultural change that is ongoing within AAAL as the Association responds to unprecedented social and global challenges by carefully and deliberately nominating its future leadership.
In her research, Aline Godfroid seeks to build bridges from psychology, psycholinguistics, and second language acquisition to real-world second language learning, and back again. Her primary research interests are in applied psycholinguistics, vocabulary, quantitative research methods, and eye-movement registration or eye tracking. Her research has appeared in numerous international, peer-reviewed journals. Aline Godfroid is the incoming editor of Language Learning, the recipient of the 2019 TESOL Award for Distinguished Research, and the co-recipient of the Best of the Modern Language Journal 2019. At Michigan State University, she co-directs the Second Language Studies Eye-Tracking Lab. Her book Eye Tracking in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism: A Research Synthesis and Methodological Guide was published by Routledge in 2020 and a finalist of the 2021 AAAL First Book Award. A new volume The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics (with Holger Hopp) is expected with Routledge in 2022.
Nominating Committee Member Candidate
Sebastien Dubreil
Carnegie Mellon University
Department of Modern Languages
I am Teaching Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Second Language Acquisition, and Technology-Enhanced Learning at Carnegie Mellon University. My research focuses on the use of instructional technology in setting up effective language learning environments to foster transcultural learning, as well as on the notions of social pedagogies, linguistic landscapes, and game-based language learning. My work has been published in the Modern Language Journal and the CALICO Journal, the International Journal of Personal and Virtual Learning Environment, and the L2 Journal among others, and I was fortunate to be able to present at numerous national and international conferences. My most recent publications include Engaging the World: Social Pedagogies and Language Learning (2017, Cengage) co-edited with Steven L. Thorne, Language Teaching in the Linguistic Landscape: Mobilizing Pedagogy in Public Space (2020, Springer Educational Linguistics Series), co-edited with David Malinowski and Hiram Maxim, and a special issue of the CALICO Journal, Innovation & Creation: The Maker Movement (2021), co-edited with Gillian Lord. With Cary Staples and a team of graduate and undergraduate students, he is working on Bonne Chance, a gaming project selected as a finalist for the 2015 Reimagine Education conference. I recently continued my foray into gameful learning by co-authoring “Apprentissage, création et jeu(x) en cours de FLE” with Sabrina Culyba. I have been a member of AAAL for 15 years now and it has been a wonderful community to learn from and think with. In 2018-2019, I served on the AAAL Ad hoc Committee on Online Education and Outreach. I would be honored to continue giving back to the organization by serving as a member of the Nominating Committee.
Nominating Committee Member Candidate
Nicole Pettitt
Youngstown State University
Department of English & World Languages
Nicole Pettitt, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and World Languages at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio. She earned her Ph.D. at Georgia State University in 2017 and, during her graduate studies, served AAAL as Secretary and then Co-Chair of the Graduate Student Council (GSC) during its first two years of existence. During that time, she also served as the first graduate student representative to the AAAL Executive Committee, working with other leaders to codify the role of the GSC within AAAL.
Her research centers on the teaching and learning of languages and literacy in contexts of migration, as well as the historical, political, and local contexts that shape teachers' emergent bilinguals' educational experiences. Her work and research with emergent bilinguals spans 20 years, having begun in her hometown of Minneapolis in the late 1990's with refugee-background learners from East Africa, particularly Somalia. She is a recent co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Second Language Writing that centers on the writing practices of adult language learners at emergent levels of reading and writing (in any language, including home or community languages). Other publications appear in Writing Systems Research, Second Language Research, Applied Linguistics, and International Review of Education: Journal of Lifelong Learning.
Nominating Committee Member Candidate
Laura Collins
Concordia University
I am Professor Emerita at Concordia University, Montréal, Québec. My research has focused on topics across a number of AAAL strands, using a range of methodologies. One program of research has examined the impact on learning of different distributions of instructional time, along with the input factors and practice opportunities that facilitate/constrain classroom learning. Other examples of published research: the building and analyzing of corpora; cross-linguistic influence; bilingual literacy practices; and the mathematical modelling of vocabulary learning. A co-authored manuscript with Concordia colleagues was the recipient of the Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in World Language Education. My professional experiences include editorship of The Canadian Modern Language Review, leadership roles in IRIS (www.iris-database.org), OASIS (www.oasis-database.org ), and AAAL’s Applied Linguistics Briefs (www.aaal.org/aaal-briefs). I have also advised the Quebec Ministry of Education on second language curriculum and program development.
I joined AAAL as a graduate student in 1998 and have been an active member ever since. I have served as Strand Coordinator, Local Chair, and member of several committees, including terms on the Executive Committee as Member at Large and more recently as President. During my tenure as Past President, one duty was to sit as a non-voting (ex-officio) member of the Nominating Committee. This experience not only familiarized me with the procedures involved, it also heightened my appreciation of the importance of this committee’s work. Overall, my decades of involvement in AAAL have helped me gain a broad understanding of the association, both historical and contemporary. They have also resulted in a commitment to AAAL’s development and outreach.
It would be an honour to serve as an elected member of the Nominating Committee.
Book Award Committee Member Candidate
Okim Kang
Northern Arizona University
Department of English
Okim Kang is professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Applied Linguistics Speech Lab at Northern Arizona University where she teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses such as Research Methods, Applied Phonology, or TESOL Methodologies. Her research focuses on speech perception and production, L2 pronunciation and intelligibility, oral assessment and testing, automated scoring and speech recognition, language attitudes, and World Englishes. As for her involvement in AAAL, she has attended AAAL since 2008 every year, and presented multiple papers with her colleagues and graduate students. She has served as a graduate student mentor, and gave a “Meet-a-AAAL Scholar’ Webinar in March, 2020. She has reviewed AAAL abstracts annually for two different strands for some years.
Kang has recently published one co-authored book, “Prosody and Computer Modeling” and published three edited books: (1) The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary English Pronunciation, (2) Assessment in Second Language Pronunciation, and (3) The Encyclopedia of Educational Innovations, and one conference PSLLT 2019 proceedings. She is currently working on two books: (1) Linguistic Analysis of Spoken Discourse and (2) Research Methods in Second Language Speech. She has published over 80 papers in academic journals or in various handbooks and edited books, presented over 200 conference/invited papers at regional and international conferences and received over 24 external grants including National Science Foundation, Duolingo, Educational Testing Service, etc, as a principal investigator. She has been on various award committees (e.g., TESOL Awards or Dissertation Awards) and reviewed books and book proposals (e.g., CUP, Routledge, or Springer). She has served on 8-10 different editorial advisory boards (e.g., Language Testing or SSLA) and had been a book review co-editor for TESL-EJ (2013-2020). Overall, Kang has an extensive amount of experience in reviewing and writing books or academic articles.
Book Award Committee Candidate
Uju Anya
Carnegie Mellon University
Department of Modern Languages
Uju Anya is Associate Professor of Second Language Acquisition in the Department of Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research primarily examines Blackness in multilingualism, and specifically, African American experiences in world language learning. She explores race, gender, sexual, and social class identities in the language classroom and study abroad, and her other research interests include applied linguistics as a practice of social justice and translanguaging in world language pedagogy. Anya’s most recent publication introduces to the field a critical race pedagogy for anti-racist, equity-minded, and inclusive language teaching, which is the subject of her keynote address for the 2022 AAAL Annual Conference. She has also published articles and chapters on African Americans in language education and study abroad, monolingual bias in language program culture and instructional practices, and her book Racialized identities in second language learning: Speaking blackness in Brazil (Routledge 2017), won the 2019 AAAL First Book Award recognizing a scholar whose first book represents outstanding work that makes an exceptional contribution to the field. Anya has served on the editorial board of Applied Linguistics, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, the AAAL Distinguished Public Service Award Committee, and she looks forward to continued service to the field of applied linguistics and our AAAL community through membership on the AAAL Book Award Committee.
Book Award Committee Candidate
Anna De Fina
Georgetown University
Italian Department
Anna De Fina is Professor of Italian Language and Linguistics andf Chair of the Italian Department and affiliated faculty with the Linguistics Department at Georgetown University. Her interests and publications focus on discourse and narrative, qualitative interviewing, identity, chronotopes, migration and super diversity.
She has published extensively on these topics including 80 articles and book chapters and 11 volumes between authored and edited books. She is one of the editors of the book series Encounters for Multilingual Matters and of Discourse, Narrative and Interaction for Routledge. Her latest publication is the Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies, coedited with Alexandra Georgakopoulou (2020, Cambridge University Press).
Book Award Committee Candidate
Meike Wernicke
University of British Columbia
Department of Language & Literacy Education
I am a settler scholar and Assistant Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. My current interest in multilingual pedagogies and second language teacher education builds on my background in modern and heritage language teaching (German and French) and French Linguistics. My research centers on French language teacher professionalization and teacher identity in minority language contexts and includes research interests in bi-/multilingual language policy, ELT, critical intercultural studies, and teacher study abroad through discourse analytic research methodologies. My work draws on critical perspectives and decolonizing approaches to center equitable language practices in both initial teacher education and teacher professional learning.
I have been a member of AAAL and a presenter at annual conferences since 2010 and am honoured to have been nominated to stand for election for the AAAL Book Award Committee. I bring a wide range of language teaching experiences and research collaborations to the committee’s task. These include working with international colleagues across different European and North American language contexts as well as local collaborations focused on official language, minority/heritage, and ancestral language settings with colleagues in British Columbia and other parts of Canada. In addition to serving five years on the executive council of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics and the editorial advisory board for the Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, my publications include a co-edited volume published with Multilingual Matters in 2021 and a 2019 special issue in TESL Canada Journal.
As a member of the AAAL Book Award Committee I would welcome the opportunity to contribute to the association’s commitment to inclusion and diversity through explicit consideration of books by authors from minoritized and underrepresented backgrounds and which offer a plurality of knowledges and methodologies.
Book Award Committee Candidate
Xuesong (Andy) Gao
University of New South Wales
School of Education
I am an associate professor at the School of Education, University of New South Wales Australia. I have been involved in language teacher education in a variety of contexts. I have directed teacher education programs at the University of Hong Kong and led professional development seminars on autonomous language learning, language learning strategy and reading for language teachers in places such as Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan. My research interests include international students’ educational experiences, language learner autonomy, language education policy and language teacher education. Over the years, I have been promoting sociocultural/ecological perspectives to understand language learners’ strategy use and language teacher agency. Relevant publications have appeared in journals such as Journal of Language, Identity and Education, Language Teaching, Language Teaching Research, Modern Language Journal, Studies in Higher Education, System, Teaching and Teacher Education, and TESOL Quarterly. I edit International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching. I was a co-editor for System: An International Journal of Educational Technology and Applied Linguistics for Elsevier (2013-2021). I also co-edit the English Language Education book series for Springer. In addition, I serve on the editorial boards of journals including Applied Linguistics Review, Asia Pacific Education Researcher, Journal of Language, Identity and Education, Language Awareness, The Language Learning Journal, and Teacher Development. I have been a member of AAAL since 2007. I am a member of AAAL’s Book Award Committee (2019-) and I was also a member of AAAL’s Dissertation Award Committee (2018-2020).
Book Award Committee Candidate
Phil Hiver
Florida State University
School of Teacher Education, College of Education
Phil Hiver is Assistant Professor of Foreign & Second Language Education in the School of Teacher Education at Florida State University. His published research focuses on leveraging the individual assets linguistically-diverse learners bring with them to their learning to reduce disparity and enhance achievement in instructed L2 settings. His ongoing work examines the intersection of learner differences and the pedagogical tools L2 teachers can leverage to confront and disrupt the ways in which language learning and use reproduce structural inequities and promote social injustice. He has also written on innovation and precision in research methods and the contribution of complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) to applied linguistics research. He is recipient of the Early Career Scholar Award (International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning) and the IRIS Replication Award. He serves on the editorial boards of TESOL Quarterly, Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, and the Journal of Language, Identity and Education. He is also Associate Editor for the Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning. He has served AAAL as an abstract reviewer and strand coordinator.
Distinguished Public Service Award Committee Candidate
Shawna Shapiro
Middlebury College
Writing & Rhetoric/Linguistics
Shawna Shapiro is an associate professor of writing and linguistics at Middlebury College. Her research focuses on the transition to higher education for immigrant and refugee students, and on innovative approaches to working with multilingual/L2 writers. Shawna’s work has appeared in many peer-reviewed journals, including TESOL Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, and Journal of Language, Identity & Education. Her book Educating Refugee-background Students: Critical Issues and Dynamic Contexts, was a finalist for the 2020 AAAL Book Award. Her latest book, Cultivating Critical Language Awareness in the Writing Classroom, will be published in February 2022 with Routledge. Shawna has also written for public audiences, including pieces with Inside Higher Ed and The Conversation, and contributes regularly to initiatives aimed at improving educational equity for English Learners in her local school district.
Distinguished Public Service Award Committee Candidate
Maricel Santos
San Francisco State University
Department of English Language and Literature
My name is Maricel G. Santos, Ed.D., and I am Professor of English/TESOL at San Francisco State University (United States). My research explores ways that adult learners can serve as agents of change in health care. From 2008-2013, I was a fellow supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities. I have leadership/research ties to several public health organizations, including the Center for Vulnerable Populations, University of California, San Francisco.
For 12 years, I’ve sustained connections to AAAL as a conference presenter, proposal reviewer, and convener of a 2016 symposium on health literacy. I have served on the Graduate Student Awards Committee (2016-2018), a tremendous opportunity to celebrate up-and-coming AAAL leaders. In 2019, I worked with colleagues to write a brief on language as a social determinant of health for AAAL’s Public Affairs and Engagement Committee.
I have over 16 years of experience working with civic engagement initiatives in higher education. I am the faculty advisor for Project SHINE, a service-learning program that links university students with community-based ESL programs. In 2018, I worked on a task force to examine political engagement at SF State, part of a multi-campus initiative sponsored by the American Democracy Project. Since 2008, I have served on the Advisory Board of SF State’s Institute of Civic and Community Engagement (ICCE). I also serve on ICCE’s sub-committee that provides awards to students, faculty, staff and community partners who demonstrate exemplary service or scholarship.
I bring varied experiences with collaborations across disciplines, between the university and the community, creating platforms for learners to be leaders. This passion for bridge-building aligns well with the spirit of AAAL’s Distinguished Public Service Award. I look forward to supporting AAAL’s commitment to celebrating bridge-builders who are turning the dial on linguistic equity.
Distinguished Public Service Award Committee Candidate
Glenn Martinez
The University of Texas at San Antonio
College of Liberal and Fine Arts
Glenn Martinez is Professor of Spanish, Bicultural/Bilingual Studies, and Public Health and Dean of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research interests center on the intersection of language, healthcare, and public health focusing on language policy in healthcare in the US, language and cultural practices in public health, and the teaching of Spanish to health care professionals. His research, program development, and community engagement efforts have been funded by the US Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His work has been published in Applied Linguistics, Patient Education and Counseling, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, and Journal of Nursing Education. He is author of Spanish in Healthcare: Policy, Practice, and Pedagogy in Latino Health (Routledge, 2020) and co-author of Tension and Contention in Language Education for Latinx in the US (Routledge, 2020) with Robert Train.
Distinguished Public Service Award Committee Candidate
Paul Kei Matsuda
Arizona State University
Department of English
Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing at Arizona State University. His research integrates various disciplinary, theoretical and methodological perspectives. Some of his areas of expertise include second language writing, identity in written discourse, and history of applied linguistics. He has extensive professional service experience, having served on numerous committees at various organizations, including AAAL. He is former president of AAAL, founding chair of the Symposium on Second Language Writing, and editor of the Parlor Press Series on Second Language Writing. He also has a broad professional network, having given plenary talks, lectures, and workshops at various conferences and institutions throughout the world. Because he was involved in the discussion leading to the creation of the AAAL Distinguished Public Service Award, he has a deep understanding of and appreciation for the spirit of the award. If elected, he will seek to identify award candidates who can advance the mission of AAAL by enhancing the status of languages and language users in ways that go beyond the organization’s capacity to act.