At the University of Illinois, I have had the pleasure of working with the experts in the field. I have had guidance at every step of the way from publishing my first article to navigating in the academic job market. The department has been supportive of my work, encouraging me to achieve more.
Spotlights
Studying linguistics at Illinois has helped me to grow immensely as a scholar. The department places a strong emphasis on research and the faculty works tirelessly to help students develop and hone their research skills.
I am working on several collaborative projects with faculty members and students at UIUC. I recently started a 5-year project funded by the Illinois State Board of Education, along with 4 other PIs at UIUC, to develop a training and certification program for qualified interpreters, to facilitate...
I received an HRI (Humanities Research Institute) summer grant of $3,000 for my in-progress ethnography of a French dual immersion program in Urbana-Champaign. I will be tracking the language acquisition outcomes and motivation/investment to learn French among different students who speak French as...
We have an incredibly diverse department. I have taken many classes that are both associated with my research and outside of my direct research interests. In my opinion, this has made me a more well-rounded linguist, and strengthened my research skills in many ways.
The UIUC Linguistics department highly encourages collaborative work. Students are trained to be well-rounded linguists by collaborating with faculty members from other departments. In addition, the linguistics department well prepares students' career paths through high-quality classes, various...
The MATESL and ESL programs provide a professional working and learning environment, where faculty members, staff, and students are eager to collaborate towards personal and academic development. The ESL program stands out as one of the most organized, efficiently managed, and well-supported...
I work on a human data labeling/crowd computing platform in Google's Ads and Commerce organization. My team's job is to generate data that is used to train and evaluate automated systems. Primarily I work on: designing, executing, and delivering studies for ads & commerce engineering teams;...
I'm mainly working on understanding what we do here at the Idaho Division of Career and Technical Education as there's a lot to learn! I'm helping a bit on our annual report that goes to the legislature and also with Perkins reporting which affects our funding at a federal level.
I am currently utilizing patient data to build predictive models for patient outcomes. I work with cross-functional teams to determine best test design and research hypotheses for our research projects. This new role is a perfect intersection of my academic interests and training, and the corporate...
Dr. Fred Davidson is Professor Emeritus in Illinois Linguistics. He will deliver the Alan Davies Lecture at the Language Testing Research Colloquium in June 2021 and he is one of the panelists in the department's professional development workshop about career outside academia.
Dr. Rurik Tywoniw - English Placement Test Coordinator - I am currently beginning my position as EPT coordinator. I look forward to helping maintain and improve the excellent English Placement Test system at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In my own time, I am working on submitting...
The MATESL and Linguistics/SLATE programs provided me with theoretical and practical knowledge that could easily be applied to the real world. Diverse teaching and researching opportunities I had under the guidance of amazing mentors have been invaluable (e.g., teaching ESL writing, administering...
Currently, I'm developing a new business writing course called "ESL 525 Elements of Business Writing" in collaboration with my colleagues in Illinois ESL. It is targeted at upper-level international students who needs a single course sequence to fulfill their graduation requirement and wants to...
The University of Illinois has a vast array of resources, including clubs, the extensive library system, webstore, etc. that are useful no matter your position. My time as a MATESL student allowed me to make valuable, cross-campus connections and meet many folks who have become important research...
One of my current projects is on the acquisition of Russian word order by second language learners and heritage speakers of Russian. This work was recently presented at the Boston University Conference on Language Development. It's a collaborative project that involves two current Linguistics...
Assistant Professor, Northeastern Illinois University -- Doing a degree at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana gave me plenty of teaching opportunities and also introduced me to the Academic world, which inspired me to further develop my research agenda.
In addition to working on updating and improving the curricula of the Arabic program, I am actively pursuing several projects that focus on teacher development. More recently, I am preparing my students to participate in national competition QatarDebate. I am working with a team of students from...
The Linguistics program at UIUC is well-rounded and rigorous with innovative and supportive faculty. My outstanding advisor, Professor Rakesh Bhatt, has unwaveringly encouraged my work as a military sociolinguist and actively ensures that I am gaining the tools that I will need to be successful...
I often reflect on the knowledge I learned and the pedagogical guidance I received during my time in the MATESL program, and I realize that my degree from Illinois made it possible for me to be where I am today. My first teaching job at the Intensive English Institute -- when it was in a house on...
The MATESL program offers high-quality coursework in language assessment and a variety of opportunities to apply this knowledge in the real world, e.g., as a Teaching Assistant and EPT rater. The mentorship of talented professors such as Dr. Xun Yan has also been invaluable in helping me succeed.
