2026 Elected Candidate Bios
Congratulations to the individuals below elected to serve AAAL!
Second Vice President Candidate
Agnes Weiyun He
Stony Brook University
Agnes Weiyun He is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Applied Linguistics, Founder and Director of the Center for Multilingual and Intercultural Communication (MIC) at Stony Brook University, and Past Secretary of AAAL (2022-2026). A multilingual scholar whose life has unfolded across many boundaries, she brings to applied linguistics a deep commitment to understanding languages as vital human resources that sustain dignity, diversity, collective well-being, as well as the development of cognition.
Agnes received her BA in English from Beijing Foreign Studies University, a Diploma in Education from the National Institute of Education (Singapore), an MA in English as a Second Language from the University of Arizona, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from UCLA. Focusing on heritage language socialization and intercultural communicative competence, her scholarship foregrounds lived experience and cultural and interactional situatedness. Her research has been supported by the Spencer Foundation, the U.S. National Academy of Education, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education. She was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2011.
Agnes is the author and editor of four books, including Voices of Immigration (2025, Cambridge University Press), and numerous articles that have helped shape scholarship in heritage language studies, language socialization, and discourse analysis. She was among the earliest scholars to demonstrate how heritage languages challenge essentialist notions of identity, community, and culture by emphasizing contingency, hybridity, and indeterminacy. Her work has appeared in journals such as Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Language in Society, The Modern Language Journal, Journal of Pragmatics, Research on Language and Social Interaction, Linguistics and Education, Journal of Narrative and Life History, The Heritage Language Journal, and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, among others.
Agnes is recognized for her dynamic, innovative, and inclusive academic leadership. She has a long record of fostering interdisciplinary collaborations that elevate research standards, broaden intellectual participation, and promote cultures of shared inquiry. This is reflected in her service as Director of MIC (2014–present), Chair of the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies (2014–2020; 2023–2024), a member of editorial boards and international review panels, as well as Secretary of AAAL. Her leadership vision is to cultivate an intellectually rigorous, ethically grounded, and holistically inclusive scholarly community that empowers applied linguistics not only to participate in, but to help lead, the work of defining and narrating our times.
FFAL Trustee
Charlene Polio
Michigan State University
I am a professor at Michigan State University in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures, where I direct the MA in TESOL and Applied Linguistics and teach in the Second Language Studies Ph.D. Program. My research interests focus on language learning and research methods in multilingual writing, and more recently, on corpus-based analyses of published research. I maintain a keen interest in research that benefits language teaching and learning. I am a current outgoing co-editor of TESOL Quarterly. For AAAL, I have served as a member-at-large, former newsletter editor, and former editor of Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. I have also served on several AAAL committees including the Dissertation Award Committee and the Promotion and Tenure Guidelines Revision Task Force. During my time at Michigan State University, I have mentored many graduate students, and I look forward to serving on a committee whose purpose is to support graduate students.
Member-at-Large Candidate
Stephen May
University of Auckland
Dr Stephen May
Tēnā koe, hello
I am Professor of Māori and Indigenous Education in the Faculty of Education and Social Practice, University of Auckland, New Zealand. My academic career has focused on how to achieve more equitable schooling experiences and outcomes for minoritized bi/multilingual students in too-often monolingual and highly discriminatory education systems. My work encompasses language rights, language policy, language revitalization, Indigenous, bilingual and multilingual education, the "multilingual turn" in language teaching, critical ethnography, and language and race/ism. I have published over 130 articles and chapters, along with 27 books on these topics, including, most recently, Mobilizing multilingual identities: Language policy, teaching, and learning (2026). I am a founding co-editor of the journal Ethnicities (2001 - ), Coordinating Editor of the Language, Education and Diversity Book Series (Multilingual Matters; 2020 - ) and Co-Editor of Studies in Minority Languages and Communities (Palgrave; 2019 - ). I am an AERA Fellow and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ). My personal homepage is https://stephenamay.com.
I have been attending and presenting at AAAL since 2003. I have also previously served on the AAAL Book Award Committee (2018-2020), and was elected last year as a member of the Dissertation Award Committee. I would welcome the opportunity and privilege to serve as an AAAL member at large, and would bring to the position my interdisciplinarity, wide international engagement, and my long collaborative involvement in and commitment to the scholarship of social and educational justice.
Nominating Committee Candidate
Sender Dovchin
Curtin University
Professor Sender Dovchin is a Senior Principal Research Fellow and Dean International at Curtin University, Australia. She is also an Australian Research Council Fellow and a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research Fellow. Previously, she worked at the University of Aizu in Japan and the National University of Mongolia. Professor Dovchin has also served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, the nation's top journal. She currently holds the position of Editor-in-Chief for Critical Inquiry into Language Studies, an international Q1 journal. As a world-leading applied linguist, Professor Dovchin has been recognized by The Australian Research Magazine in 2021, 2024, and 2025 as the top linguist in the nation and among the top 250 researchers across all fields in Australia. She is also ranked in the top 2% of the most cited scholars globally, according to the Stanford University citation database. Proud of her Mongolian heritage, Professor Dovchin actively incorporates Southern theories, including Indigenous perspectives, into her work. She has led multiple high-impact research projects focused on empowering people from Indigenous, refugee, and migrant backgrounds in Australia and beyond. Professor Dovchin has authored numerous research monographs and edited volumes with prestigious international publishers such as Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Additionally, she has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, widely regarded as benchmarks of scholarly excellence in the discipline.
Regarding my extent of involvement in AAAL, I have been actively engaged with the association in several capacities over recent years. I served as a member of the AAAL Book Award Committee for two years, contributing to the review and selection of scholarly works that advance the field. In 2023, I was invited to deliver a plenary keynote, which reflects both recognition of my research leadership and my longstanding contribution to applied linguistics. In addition, I have supported early career scholars by serving as a mentor in the AAAL Early Career Mentorship Workshops, helping emerging researchers navigate publication, career development, and equitable research practices. With regard to my qualifications for the position, my record demonstrates extensive scholarly leadership and service within the field. I am an internationally recognised researcher in applied linguistics, with a strong track record of publications, competitive research funding, editorial experience, and deep engagement with both academic and community stakeholders. My service to AAAL, combined with my broader contributions to applied linguistics scholarship—including keynote invitations, editorial leadership, community impact, and sustained mentorship—positions me well to contribute meaningfully and responsibly in this role.
Nominating Committee Candidate
Anna Mendoza
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
I am an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I coordinate the MA TESOL practicum with the local refugee center. Hence, my current research interests involve trans/plurilingual pedagogies in community education for older adult learners (aged 30+) with limited exposure to print literacy. Prior research on trans/plurilingual pedagogies in different settings has appeared in TESOL Quarterly, Journal of Language, Identity, & Education, System, Foreign Language Annals, Modern Language Journal, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, and the book Translanguaging and English as a Lingua Franca in the Plurilingual Classroom (Multilingual Matters). Currently, I am working on a co-edited book titled Research Methodologies in Plurilingualism in Language Education (Routledge), and a special issue of the journal Babylonia titled “Using Students’ Other Languages in Language Teaching and Learning.” I am a peer reviewer for the BIH and DIS strands at AAAL and have served on the Conference Connections committee for the last two years. I also serve on the editorial boards of TESOL Quarterly and Foreign Language Annals and am Associate Editor of International Multilingual Research Journal. These experiences have given me organizational skills, international networks, and broad disciplinary knowledge for serving on the Nominating Committee.
Nominating Committee Candidate
Naoko Taguchi
Northern Arizona University
Nominating Committee Candidate
Francis Troyan
The Ohio State University
Francis John Troyan is Professor of Multilingual Language Education and Interim Associate Chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning, as well as affiliated faculty in French and Italian, at The Ohio State University. His teaching and research focus on language teacher education, performance assessment, and language teacher identities and ideologies. During his time as a member of AAAL, he has served as proposal reviewers for a number of strands and, most recently, as a strand co-coordinator for second and foreign language pedagogy. His research has appeared in The Canadian Modern Language Review, Foreign Language Annals, Language and Education, System, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Language and Sociocultural Theory. He is a co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Research in World Language Instruction (2025), as well as a co-author of Implementing Integrated Performance Assessment (2023) and Implementing Integrated Performance Assessment (2013). He received the 2022 ACTFL/NYSAFLT Anthony Papalia Award for Excellence in Teacher Education and the 2018 Northeast Conference Stephen A. Freeman Award for Best Published Article on Teaching Techniques. Dr. Troyan is co-editor of Foreign Language Annals.
JEDI Candidate (3 Year)
Prem Phyak
Teachers College Columbia University
Dr. Prem Phyak is an associate professor of language, society, and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is an Indigenous Yaakthung from Nepal. Before joining Teachers College, he worked at Tribhuvan University, Nepal, for a decade and the Chinese University of Hong Kong for three years. His research areas include language policy, multilingual education, translanguaging, decoloniality, social justice, and Indigenous language education.
Dr. Phyak has co-authored a book, Engaged Language Policy and Practices (with Kathy Davis), and co-edited The Handbook of Translanguaging (with Li Wei, Jerry Won Lee & Ofelia Garcia) and Multilingual Education in South Asia: At the Intersection of Policy and Practice (Lina Adinolfi & Usree Bhattacharya). He has published articles in multiple journals such as Language Policy, Applied Linguistics Review, The Modern Language Journal, Language in Society, Current Issues in Language Planning, Journal of Language, Identity and Education, and Comparative Education Review. He serves as an associate editor of Diaspora, Indigenous and Minority Education.
Dr. Phyak has been an active member for more than two decades. He has served as Chair of the Resolution Committee, Strand Coordinator for Language and Ideology (three terms), and a member of the Nomination Committee (one term).
JEDI Candidate (2 Year)
Ashley Moore
University of Toronto/OISE
I am Assistant Professor in Language and Literacies Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Broadly, my research aims at grasping the effects of power on the linguistic trajectories of plurilingual people, especially those belonging to equity-deserving groups. I have been continuously involved in various JEDI-focused initiatives within AAAL since 2021, including as co-chair of the 2022-2023 DEIA Task Force, the 2023-2024 JEDI Working Group, and the 2024-2025 JEDI Ad Hoc Committee. Since 2025, I have served the Ad Hoc Committee as a committee member. In collaboration with many wonderful colleagues, we have achieved important goals in our mission to support people across AAAL in enacting its commitments to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. These have included establishing the JEDI Standing Committee, installing the new JEDI Officer as a member of the Executive Committee, and developing the AAAL Inclusive Presenter Guidelines.
There is still much work to do. If elected, I will continue to be guided by the noted need for (a) expansive conversations about the relevance of JEDI principles to the varied work of AAAL members, and (b) evidence-based, systemic transformation within the association and the field.