AAAL 2026 Award Recipients
- Book Award
- Dissertation Award
- Distinguished Public Service Award
- Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award
- Distinguished Service and/or Engaged Research Graduate Student Award in Relation to Diversity Efforts
- Graduate Student Award
- Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
- Research Article Award
Book AwardDaniel Silva | Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
Daniel Silva is associate professor of Applied Linguistics at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. He also teaches in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. His research examines the intersection of language, violence, and hope in peripheral communities, with a particular focus on the role of communicative practices, digital and social technologies, and translocal networks of cooperation in activist movements.
Book Award
Jerry Won Lee | University of California, Irvine
Jerry Won Lee is a professor of applied linguistics in the Department of English and Director of the Program in Global Languages & Cultures at UCI. His recent books include Locating Translingualism (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Language as Hope, co-authored with Daniel N. Silva (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Entangled Englishes, co-edited with Sofia Rüdiger (Routledge, 2025), and The Handbook of Translanguaging, co-edited with Li Wei, Prem Phyak, and Ofelia García (Wiley-Blackwell, 2026).
Dissertation AwardR. Marika Kunnas | University of British Columbia
Marika Kunnas (she/her/elle) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education in the department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. She is a former secondary school French teacher. Framed by critical race theory, critical language and race theory, and raciolinguistics, her research interests include French language education, antiracism, and anticolonialism. Marika’s research explores the experiences of racially minoritized people in French programs in Canada using qualitative and arts-based methods. Marika’s dissertation employed counter-stories and counter-monologues to explore the experiences of racially minoritized students in French immersion programs.
Distinguished Public Service Award
Drew S. Fagan | University of Maryland
For the last three decades, Dr. Drew Fagan has dedicated himself to raising the greater public’s awareness on the importance of multilingualism. Currently a clinical professor at the University of Maryland, he directs (and developed) the state’s first Ed.D. in School System Leadership Program with a specialization in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Dual Language Education for P-12 teacher leaders and administrators. He is a past president of the Maryland TESOL Association and currently sits on the board of directors for the TESOL International Association. He was also the 2023 recipient of the Teacher of the Year Award for the TESOL International Association and National Geographic Learning.
While active as a traditional academe, Drew’s professional work interweaves his in-depth knowledge of language learning with various public service partnerships beyond traditional higher education spheres. His philosophy is that all stakeholders who play a role in promoting asset-based perspectives of multilingualism in education (P-12 teachers, higher education professors, researchers, administrators, not-for-profit associations, governmental offices, publishers, parents/families/community members, and lawmakers) need to come out of their siloes and collaborate to make change happen. Case in point, Drew has worked closely with the last three state superintendents of Maryland as the invited language education/multilingual learner lead on numerous task forces, where he has collaborated with teachers, administrators, union representatives, state board members, governor’s office representatives, legislators, lawyers, department of health and labor representatives, among others, to assist in their understanding of why multilingualism is beneficial for all students towards advancing the state’s public school system. Most recently, Drew’s leadership efforts have led to the Seal of Biliteracy being made one of the official variables school systems can use to illustrate students’ post-secondary preparation in state accountability reporting.
Drew has also developed, advocated for, and helped pass state laws connecting language acquisition and educational achievement. In 2023, he took on a role in a grassroots coalition to develop a law ensuring that all designated academic community college English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses not deemed remedial would be credit-bearing for the first time in the state’s history and transferrable to four-year institutions. This collaborative effort brought together community college faculty and students (former and current), media representatives, non-for-profit associations, and representatives from the Maryland legislature and their staff (some of whom were formerly affected by these policies) in thinking about how they could collaborate in creating a law that would address this issue. As the lead language acquisition expert, Drew ensured that research was presented so the lawmakers and their constituents would understand the need for this as it related to helping the students and the state overall. What would eventually become the Credit for All Language Learning Act passed into law April 2024 and is scheduled to go into effect this upcoming year.
With the philosophy that actively working outside of our siloes can lead to greater change, Drew has begun mentoring and advising language learning higher education faculty on how to engage with various stakeholders outside of traditional outlets to expand the reach of their knowledge and scholarship to broader education decision-making communities.
Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award
Lourdes Ortega | Georgetown University
Lourdes Ortega (Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition, University of Hawai‘i) is a Professor at Georgetown University, USA, where she carries out research on multilingualism and education and mentors doctoral students. She is best known for an award-winning meta-analysis of second language instruction published in 2000, a best-seller textbook Understanding Second Language Acquisition (Routledge 2009, translated into Mandarin in 2016), and since 2010 for championing a social justice turn in the field of second language acquisition. Her multilingual repertoire includes English, Spanish, Greek, and German, and she currently is involved in research supporting k-12 teachers of Arabic and Urdu, two under-researched languages in the United States. Lourdes was President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in 2023-2024 and is General Editor of Language Learning.
Distinguished Service and/or Engaged Research Graduate Student Award in Relation to Diversity Efforts
Thérèse Moua-Jasperson | University of Wisconsin-Madison
After receiving a master’s degree in Language, Literacy, and Culture from Stanford University, Moua-Jasperson worked as a Hmong language consultant, developing language standards and instructional material for Hmong language programs across the nation. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, studying Second Language Acquisition. Her research examines Hmong writing development through a desire-based framework, which acknowledges the hardships and injustices faced by the Hmong while also emphasizing the aspirations, resilience, knowledge, and creativity that sustain them in the face of adversity. The Hmong refugee experience extends beyond physical resettlement; it includes their pursuit of linguistic rights through Hmong writing, which enables them to record and share their own stories in their mother tongue.
Graduate Student AwardMelike Akay | University of South Florida
Melike Akay is a Ph.D. candidate in the Linguistics and Applied Language Studies (LALS) program at the University of South Florida (USF). She serves as a Graduate Teaching Associate and as a Graduate Student Board Member of the College of Arts and Sciences Technology Committee at USF. In addition, she is a co-chair of CALICO’s Graduate Student Special Interest Group. As a native Turkish speaker and L2 English user, her linguistic background shapes her scholarly interests in CALL, L2 pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and digital discourse. For her dissertation, Melike examines college students’ autonomous experiences with language learning apps, focusing on their perceived effectiveness for L2 skill development and intercultural learning. Her work has been published in journals such as Language Learning & Technology, Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Internet Pragmatics, Communication & Medicine, and the Journal of Language and Pop Culture.
Graduate Student Award - Multilingual Matters Award
Karen Andrews | Concordia University
Karen Andrews is a PhD student in Applied Linguistics in Education at Concordia University. Her earlier work used interpretive policy analysis (IPA) to reimagine policy and language assessment for refugee-background students. Her current research examines how institutional language represents and responds to coercive control in intimate partner violence, focusing on how survivors resist dominant narratives about their experiences.
Graduate Student Award - Wilga Rivers Award
Duk-In Choi | The University of Iowa
Duk-In Choi is a Ph.D. Candidate in Multilingual Education within the Literacy, Culture, and Language Education (LCLE) program at the University of Iowa. With over a decade of professional teaching experience in both the United States and South Korea, his research is deeply grounded in the lived experiences of language teachers. His scholarly inquiry sits at the intersection of teacher education and educational policy analysis, specifically investigating how multilingual teachers navigate their professional development and negotiate policy mandates across diverse teacher licensure pathways and education programs. Employing critical discourse analysis, he explores the complex agency and identity work of teachers in these contexts. He is dedicated to advancing inclusive teacher education programs that empower educators to challenge linguistic inequities and foster transformative learning environments.
Graduate Student Award - Duolingo Award
Mukaddes Coban Postaci | University of Arizona
Mukaddes Coban Postaci is a Ph.D. candidate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) and a Graduate Teaching Associate in the Writing Program at the University of Arizona. She teaches second language writing and online writing courses. Her research focuses on critical applied linguistics, identity, L2 writing, and intersectionality.
Graduate Student Award - JEDI Award
Asya Gorlova | University of Arizona
Asya Gorlova is a PhD Candidate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on language education in contexts of displacement and migration. Her dissertation project explores how refugee resettlement policies, teacher professional learning, and instructional practices shape teaching and learning in adult language and literacy programs in the United States.
Graduate Student Award
Michael Guarino | Georgetown University
Michael Guarino is a second-year doctoral student in sociolinguistics at Georgetown University. His research explores the dynamic intersections of language, culture, identity, and ideology in everyday conversation, computer-mediated communication, and institutional interaction. Michael's work is guided by a passion for embracing linguistic and cultural diversity, which he has promoted through his previous work as a curriculum developer and facilitator for intercultural and multilingual education programs, as well as through his current role as the instructor of record for an undergraduate course on cross-cultural communication.
Graduate Student Award - Grabe/Stoller Award
Ou Ourilige | Leiden University
Ou Ourilige is a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics and Language Acquisition at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics in the Netherlands. She earned an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and Language Acquisition in Multilingual Contexts from the University of Barcelona, Spain. Her doctoral research focuses on cross-linguistic influence in third language (L3) acquisition, with particular attention to the acquisition of the count-mass distinction in L3 English by Mongolian-Mandarin bilinguals, whose first language, Mongolian, is typologically different from both English and Mandarin and features a productive system of optional plural marking. Her work examines how different linguistic systems interact in multilingual learning and investigates the primary sources of language transfer through a range of testing methods. Her quantitative research highlights learners from linguistically minoritized communities and explores implications for multilingual pedagogy and classroom practice. She is actively involved in the linguistics research community and regularly presents her work at international conferences.
Graduate Student Award - ETS Award
Onur Özkaynak | The Ohio State University
Onur Özkaynak is a PhD candidate in Foreign, Second, and Multilingual Language Education at The Ohio State University. His interests lie in educational sociolinguistics and language teacher education, with a focus on language, ideology, and equity in multilingual educational contexts.
Graduate Student Award - Duolingo Award
Eda Yildirimer | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Eda Yildirimer is a master’s student in TESOL at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and holds an additional MA in English Language Teaching from Middle East Technical University (METU). She has served as a Head Teaching Assistant and sole instructor in the ESL Program and currently works as a Writing Consultant at the Writers Workshop. She has volunteered as an instructor for incarcerated students and Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults (LESLLA) learners. Her research interests center on language teacher professional development and identity (re)construction in multilingual and multicultural contexts. She is committed to the belief that education is for everyone and strives to promote equitable, inclusive, and humanizing learning environments.
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Mariane de Araujo Batista-McCulloch | University of Minnesota
Mariane Batista-McCulloch is a PhD student in Multilingual Education at the University of Minnesota. Her current research is focused on language embodiment, a concept that acknowledges Afro-Indigenous ancestral dances, singing, and drumming as means of community through connection to language and spirituality.
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Yesenia Bautista Ortiz | Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca
Yesenia Bautista Ortiz is a teacher educator at Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, Mexico. She has an MA in critical language education. Her research focuses on the life stories and identity construction of Indigenous peoples and migrant people from Oaxaca. She collaborated in the creation of an educational guide for teachers regarding the needs of transborder students. ORCID
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Melvatha Chee | University of New Mexico
Melvatha R. Chee is Tsé Nahabiłnii, Kin Łichíi’nii, Hooghan Łání and Áshįįhí from Lake Valley, New Mexico. Chee’s research primarily focuses on the linguistic analysis of Navajo child language. Melvatha is an Associate Professor of Linguistics, Director of the Navajo Language Program at the University of New Mexico.
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Tsewang Chuskit | Teachers College, Columbia University
Tsewang Chuskit is a doctoral student and a doctoral fellow in the International and Comparative Education program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She holds an M.S.Ed. in International Educational Development from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. Her research explores the intersection of language policy and power within Indigenous communities in India, with a particular focus on Ladakh. Using a decolonial lens, she examines how symbolic inclusion and policy discourse perpetuate linguistic hierarchies and marginalize Indigenous languages in education.
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Anamika Das | Tulane University
Anamika Das is a Ph.D. student specializing in Linguistic Anthropology. Her research interests include identity construction, language maintenance and shift, language documentation, and revitalization. Her doctoral research explores how identity is constructed and negotiated through processes of language maintenance and shift. It also analyzes the key influences of governmentalism and nationalism in shaping identity and visibility among indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts division of Bangladesh.
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Mario López-Gopar | Universidad Autonoma Benito Juarez de Oaxaca
Mario López-Gopar (Ph. D., OISE/University of Toronto) is professor at Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca. Mario’s main research interest is intercultural and multilingual education of Indigenous peoples in Mexico. He has published numerous articles and book chapters. His latest books are Decolonizing Primary English Language Teaching (Multilingual Matters, 2016) and International Perspectives on Critical Pedagogies in ELT (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019). ORCID
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Angelica Mendoza Hernandez | Universidad Autonoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca
I am Angelica Mendoza, I'm 28 years old, I'm a Zapotec woman from Oaxaca, Mexico. I am one of the few Zapotec speakers left in my family, and it's thanks to my grandmother.
I have been working on projects to revitalize the Zapotec language in my community, and I have a degree in language teaching.
Nowadays I'm teaching Zapotec to people in my community.
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Michol Malia Miller | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Michol Malia Miller is a doctoral candidate at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her primary research interests include critical curriculum and materials development and teacher training for Indigenous language revitalization, followed by secondary interests in task-based language teaching, critical pedagogy and cognitive usage-based approaches to second language acquisition. Motivated by her own personal journey of ancestral language reclamation of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) , her research focuses on exploring ways that contemporary research in applied linguistics and second language acquisition can be leveraged to support the language revitalization efforts of Indigenous language communities around the world.
Indigenous Language Scholarship Support Fund
Rossina Soyan | Arizona State University
Rossina Soyan is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Russian at Arizona State University (M.A. Portland State University; Ph.D. Carnegie Mellon University). Her research interests include reading development, language contact, and intergenerational transmission of Indigenous languages. Her work appeared in Research Methods in Applied Linguistics, Modern Language Journal, and Journal of Language, Identity & Education. As a Tuvan speaker, she investigates the intergenerational transmission and use of Tuvan and Russian languages in Tuva, Russia. Her latest project focuses on identifying governmental policies and community-driven efforts aimed at preserving and promoting the Tuvan language within the last decade.
Research Article AwardLaela Adamson | University of Strathclyde, UK
Dr Laela Adamson is a Lecturer in Education Policy at the Strathclyde Institute of Education at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, UK. Her research focuses on language(s)-in-education in sub-Saharan Africa, taking a social justice perspective, and she has been involved in empirical research in Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda. She also has a professional background as a secondary History teacher in the UK.
Research Article Award
Aline Dorimana | Mount Kigali University
Dr. Aline Dorimana holds a PhD in Mathematics Education and serves as a Lecturer and Director of Quality Assurance at Mount Kigali University in Rwanda. Her scholarly work focuses on enhancing the quality of teaching and learning, with particular research interests in problem-solving pedagogies, multilingual approaches to mathematics instruction, and curriculum development across higher and basic education. She has authored and co-authored more than 13 indexed publications and actively contributes to academic discourse through research supervision, conference presentations, and collaborative projects. Dr. Dorimana is a member of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction’s Capacity and Network Project (CANP 4) and the Rwanda Association of Women in Science and Engineering (RAWISE). She has participated in major research initiatives, including the GEMI Project, which produced several publications and a policy brief. Dr. Dorimana has also represented Rwanda at international platforms, including the International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME) held in Sydney. In recognition of her dedication to advancing gender equity in STEM, she received an award for inspiring and encouraging girls to pursue STEM fields.
Research Article Award
Harry Kuchah Kuchah | University of Birmingham, UK
Harry Kuchah Kuchah is Associate Professor of Language, Social Justice and Education at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has also served as a consultant on different aspects of language policy and practice for the British Council, the Council of Europe and Windle Trust International in different national contexts. His research interests include multilingual Education, Language education and epistemic justice, Language Teacher education and context appropriate pedagogies, and he has published widely in these areas. He is co-editor of International Perspectives on Teaching English in Difficult Circumstances (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Ethical and methodological issues in researching young language learners in school contexts (Multilingual Matters, 2021) and Teachers researching their classroom questions: Reports from Africa (IATEFL, 2022).
Research Article Award
Lizzi O. Milligan | University of Bath
Lizzi is Professor of Education and Global Social Justice at the University of Bath. She has co-led multiple international, collaborative projects related to different forms of (in)justice in language-in-education. This includes the Girls EMI Rwanda project which was the basis for the collaborative paper that received this award. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of Bristol.
Research Article Award
Terra Sprague | Elerrate Consultancy
Dr Terra Sprague is an independent narrative researcher. She holds a PhD in Environmental Resilience in Islands. Her work focuses on the Human-Earth Relationship and how to respond to the Anthropocene through narrative inquiry. Terra's current research looks at processes of returning menstrual blood to the Earth's soil and waterways as an act of reciprocity and regeneration.
Research Article Award
Aloysie Uwizeyemariya | University of Rwanda-College of Education
Aloysie Uwizeyemariya is a lecturer at the University of Rwanda – College of Education (UR-CE), Centre for Language Enhancement (CLE). She is currently pursuing a PhD by research in English Education. Since 2012, she has taught a variety of English-related courses at UR-CE. She has also previously served as a secondary school English teacher.
She is an active member of the Association of Teachers of English in Rwanda (ATER), a professional body dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of English in Rwandan schools. She has also worked with the British Council on the Building Learning Foundations (BLF) in Rwanda project, which aimed to equip lower primary teachers with the competencies needed to effectively teach English and Mathematics, as well as on the Secondary Teacher English Learning Improvement in Rwanda (STELIR) project.
Her research projects have primarily focused on language education and communication skills. She has contributed to several language-related research initiatives conducted by the University of Rwanda in collaboration with partner institutions such as Bath University (UK), SAIDE (South Africa), and the University of Notre Dame (USA). These are ‘Exploring the opportunities for learning justice: a case study of girls' educational experiences in English medium Rwandan basic education’, From an African oral tale to an English picture book: Rwandan teachers’ experience with online translation of SAIDE’s African Storybook (DOI), and the LIBROS Rwanda research project on Multilateral Partnership in Title Development and Book Use in Rwandan Primary Schools.
Research Article Award
Alphonse Uworwabayeho | University of Rwanda-College of Education
Alphonse Uworwabayeho is Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Rwanda-College of Education. His research interest focuses on STEAM Education.