Amy S. Thompson

Treasurer, President Elect

Amy S. Thompson, Ph.D. (Ph.D. Michigan State University, 2009) is a Professor of Applied Linguistics and Department Chair of the Department of World Languages, Literatures, & Linguistics at West Virginia University. Her teaching experience includes a range of theoretical and methodological courses in applied linguistics. Regarding research, her primary research foci involve Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition and the interaction of these IDs and multilingualism. Examples of her research can be found in journals such as the Modern Language Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Foreign Language Annals, and the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, among others. More information can be found on her WVU website: https://worldlanguages.wvu.edu/faculty-staff/administration/amy-thompson

Chengchen Li

Vice President, Conference Officer

Chengchen Li is an Associate Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Education, University College London, UK. Her research interests include positive psychology, L2 writing, task-based language teaching, and bilingualism. She has published over 40 papers on individual difference factors in journals such as Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and System. She serves as Associate Editor of Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. She is the Vice President of the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning. She was recognized among Stanford University’s World’s Top 2% Scientists in 2021 and 2022 and acknowledged as Elsevier’s “Highly Cited Chinese Researchers” in 2022 and 2023.

Jean-Marc Dewaele

Past President

Jean-Marc Dewaele is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck, University of London. He is particularly interested in the psychological and emotional aspects of foreign language learning and teaching. He has published over 350 papers and chapters. He has also (co-)edited and (co-)authored ten books and five special issues. He is the author of a monograph Emotions in Multiple Languages in 2010 (2nd ed. in 2013). He co-authored Questionnaires in Second Language Research (3rdedition in 2023) with Zoltan Dörnyei. 

He is President of the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning (IAPLL) (2022-). Previously, he was President of the International Association of Multilingualism and of the European Second Language Association. He is currently editor of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. He won the Equality and Diversity Research Award (2013) from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, the Robert C. Gardner Award for Outstanding Research in Bilingualism (2016) from the International Association of Language and Social Psychology and he recently received the Distinguished Scholar Award (2022) from the European Second Language Association.

Additional information about Jean-Marc’s research and publications can be found in his homepage https://www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8005186/jean-marc-dewaele or https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jean-Marc-Dewaele

Peter MacIntyre

Past President, Scholarships and Awards Committee, Bylaws

Peter D. MacIntyre is a professor of psychology at Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada.  Peter received his undergraduate degree from that institution before attending the University of Western Ontario (Ph.D., 1992) under the supervision of R. C. Gardner.  From 1992-1994 he held a position as a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Ottawa, working with Richard Clément and Kimberly Noels.  Peter has published almost 100 journal articles and chapters primarily in the area of psychological processes in second language learning and communication, including studies of anxiety, motivation, and willingness to communicate.  He is co-author or co-editor of several books related to the psychology of language learning. 

Megan Driver

Co-treasurer, Scholarships and Awards Committee

Bio

Ben McMurry

Communications and Social Media Officer

Ben McMurry is the Administrative Coordinate of the Intensive English Program at Brigham Young University.  He has taught and administered in Intensive English programs at various institutions over the past two decades. As the Administrative Coordinator at the English Language Center he overseas curriculum, assessment, evaluation, teacher training, and institutional research. He has an affinity for materials development and working with teams to create meaningful learning experiences for students. His research interests include materials development, the psychology of language learning, and program administration. He is currently working with graduate students pursuing theses that involve the psychology of language learning, including positive Psychology.

Carlos Murillo

Communications and Social Media Officer

Carlos Murillo-Miranda is currently pursuing his PhD focused on exploring the wellbeing and identities of EFL teachers in Costa Rica at the University of Graz, Austria. His research interests are related to language learning and teaching psychology. He has experience teaching EFL and teaching language teaching methodology courses at university level in Costa Rica.

Christine Muir

Secretary

Christine Muir (Ph.D. University of Nottingham, 2016) is an Assistant Professor in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her Ph.D. thesis won the American Association for Applied Linguistics/AAAL’s Dissertation Award in 2018, and her research since has continued to be rooted in the broad field of language learning psychology. Christine has specific interests in language learner motivation and teacher wellbeing and is active in collaborations with international partners across varied projects in both these areas. Christine is a member of the Editorial Board for The Journal for the Psychology of Language Learning.

Elouise Botes

Newsletter Editor

Elouise Botes a post-doctoral researcher in Psychology at the University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg. Previously, she was employed as a post-doc at the University of Vienna, Austria from 2021-2023. She has lectured in the Master’s of Educational Psychology programmes at the University of Vienna and in Psychology programmes at the University of Luxembourg. She graduated with my PhD in Psychology from the University of Luxembourg in June 2021. She is an inter-disciplinary researcher examining the role of individual differences in language learning, using concepts from both psychology and applied linguistics in her work. She was recently awarded with the Early Career Researcher Award from the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning and is currently on the editorial board for the Journal of Multicultural and Multilingual Development.

Pia Resnik

Newsletter Editor

Pia Resnik is Professor of ELT Research and Methodology at the University College of Teacher Education, Vienna|Lower Austria and teaches courses in educational linguistics at the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna. Her research interests include all aspects surrounding multi-competent LX users of English, with a particular focus on emotions in multilingual contexts and the psychology of language learning and teaching. She has written and co-authored several publications in these areas, including the book Multilinguals’ verbalisation and perception of emotions published by Multilingual Matters. 

Marilyn Meristo

Membership Officer

Merilyn Meristo is an Associate Professor of French Studies at Tallinn University and the Head of the Foreign Language Teacher Master's Programme. Her doctoral research focused on teachers' motivation, sense of school climate, self-efficacy, and job satisfaction, primarily framed by Self-Determination Theory. Over the past 10 years, she has expanded her research to include language learners' and language teachers' contexts, as well as foreign and second language acquisition. Her recently completed research grant explored the history of foreign language teaching in Estonia before, during, and after the Soviet occupation. As a teacher educator, she has supported language teachers' professional development and taught research seminars for university students in Sri Lanka for years.

Maria Summers

Events Coordinator

Maria Summers is Assistant Director of General Education and Coordinator for First-Year Foundations at Brigham Young University. She works with faculty and staff to ensure that the entry course required by all incoming Freshman is a meaningful experience for students and faculty. Maria is passionate about helping language learners.

Sachiko Nakamura

SIG Coordinator, Bylaws

Sachiko Nakamura is Assistant Professor at the Center for English as a Lingua Franca at Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan. She received her Doctoral degree in Applied Linguistics from King Mongkut’s University in Thailand in 2021. Her research primarily focuses on language learner emotions and engagement, which has been published in journals such as Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching and Studies in Second Language Acquisition. She has been invited to co-edit a book, Innovation in language teaching: The case of Japan, published by Palgrave Macmillan, and to contribute chapters for edited books, including the Routledge handbook of the psychology of language learning and teaching and Student engagement in the language classroom by Multilingual Matters. Apart from her own work, she volunteers as a proofreader, reviewer, and content editor for international refereed journals.

Lani Freeborn

Student Representative

Lani Freeborn is a PhD student at the Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication (ACLC), University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include individual differences in language learning and complex dynamic systems theory. In her PhD project, Lani is exploring the construct of foreign language aptitude as a complex system, investigating the influence of cognitive, affective and cognitive individual differences on L2 learning outcomes. She has experience teaching EFL and EAP in Portugal, China, Cambodia, and Hong Kong. Lani is also an assistant editor at the journal Linguistics in Amsterdam.

Imelda K. Brady

Conference Chair, PLL5 Conference Chair, Founding JPLL Editor

"Imelda K. Brady (Ph.D) is currently an Associate Lecturer at the University Centre for the Ministry of Defence (Spanish Air Force) in Murcia, Spain. She has been teaching EFL and ESP at third level for over 20 years now across a wide range of university degrees, from business English to English for health studies. Imelda and has also coordinated M.Ed work placement modules and taught Psycholinguistics (M.Ed in Bilingual Education – Catholic University of Murcia) and collaborated on different teacher training modules in the M.Ed for EFL Secondary Teacher qualifications at the same institution. Her research interests lie in L2 learning motivation and individual differences in language learning. Her doctoral thesis centered on L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2009) in Spanish university students. She has coauthored articles on autonomy on language learning and edited several books on language learning and teaching.

Muhammad Shahbaz

Advisory Board Member

Muhammad Shahbaz, PhD Applied Linguistics from Northeast Normal University, China, started teaching English at a higher secondary school in Pakistan and is currently serving as an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at GC Women University Sialkot Pakistan. Shahbaz has got a curiosity for second and foreign languages with teaching experience in China, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. He regularly publishes about individual differences research in SLA and likes to travel for fun and present his work at different international forums.

Jian-E Peng

PLL6 Conference Chair

"ian-E Peng is a professor at the College of Liberal Arts, Shantou University, China. She holds a PhD from the University of Sydney. Her research interests include learner motivation, computer-assisted language learning, teacher development, academic writing, and research methodology. She has published about 50 papers in journals such as Language Learning, TESOL Quarterly, Computer Assisted Language Learning, System, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, ELT Journal, and Linguistics and Education. She was included in Stanford University’s World’s Top 2% Scientists from 2020 through 2022 and Elsevier’s “Highly Cited Chinese Researchers” from 2020 through 2023.

Dávid Smid

Editor-in-Chief

Dávid Smid is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of ELT Research and Methodology, University of Graz, Austria. He has a PhD in Language Pedagogy (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary). His research interests include language learner and language teacher psychology, language teacher education, and motivation. Dávid’s publications include a monograph entitled Toward an understanding of pre-service English teachers’ motivation: The case of Hungary. Currently, with his research team, he is working on another monograph entitled Motivation, autonomy, and emotions in foreign language learning: A nation-wide multi-perspective investigation in Hungary, to be published by Multilingual Matters. He can be reached at david.smid@uni-graz.at

Richard Sampson

Editor-in-Chief

Richard J Sampson (PhD, Griffith University) has been working in the Japanese education context for over 25 years. He is a Professor at Chuo University in Tokyo, teaching courses in English communication and language learning psychology. His research interests include language learner and teacher psychology, focusing especially on issues of motivation, emotions, and identity. He uses practitioner research to explore experiences of classroom language learning from the perspectives of students and teachers.