2015-2016 Team

Coordinators

Christian Ruvalcaba is a PhD candidate in the interdisciplinary Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) program at the University of Arizona. His research interests include the formal syntax of Spanish and English, psycholinguistics, SLA theory and methods, bilingualism, sociolinguistics, linguistic landscapes, and technology and education. Email: ruvalca1@email.arizona.edu

Michelle Aguilera is a PhD student in the Language Reading and Culture program at the University of Arizona. Her work focuses on language planning and policy and the anthropology of education. Her research deals with equitable education for minority students, specifically in how it relates to language. Some of her other research interests are multilingualism, language rights, language ideology, and education policy. Email: maguiler@email.arizona.edu

Graduate Researchers (2015-2017)

Essa Ali Batel is a PhD student in the Second Language Acquisition & Teaching program of the University of Arizona. He is from Saudi Arabia. His research interests include L2 psycholinguistics, L2 sentence processing, and the L2 mental lexicon.

My name is Sichon Koowuttayakorn, a PhD candidate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program at the University of Arizona. Back home in Thailand, I worked as an English instructor in a university in Bangkok. My research interests include social semiotics, digital literacies, and technology in language teaching and learning. Outside academia, I love taking photographs, playing ukulele, and daydreaming of being a full-time wanderlust!

Undergraduate Researchers (2015-2017)

Faisal Saud Alotaibi. I’m from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I’m an undergraduate student majoring in architecture. My research interests are architecture related areas and languages. I also like psychology.

Ming Gao. I come from China, Deng Feng (place where KongFu originated) and am very proud of it. Fun fact: All of our local students have to learn KongFu in the elementary school. So basically everyone knows a little bit of KongFu. I learned some advanced KongFu last summer. I am currently a junior at the University of Arizona Eller College. I am majoring in Marketing and may possibly pursue a double major in Finance. I enjoy researching cultural differences, political issues, economic development, and marketing.

My name is Meshaal Bashir Hobba, and I am undergraduate student at the University of Arizona Majoring in Finance at the Eller school of business. I was born in Tucson, Arizona and both my parents are originally from Libya. Some of my skills include the following: I’m fluent in English and Arabic. I am proficient with Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Access). I also have excellent Customer Service Skills. I’m resourceful, eager to learn and have the proven ability to take full ownership on all projects, big and small. I also have strong presentation and written communication skills

Xin Tang is an international student with a pre-business major at Eller College of management in the University of Arizona. She comes from Xi’an, Shaanxi, China. Her work focuses on interviewing local business who speak Mandarin or Cantonese as their first language and then translating the interview. One of her other interests is financial analysis. Email: tang3@email.arizona.edu

My name is Alex Zormeier. I am a Tucson native and am currently studying German Studies and Linguistics at the University of Arizona. I plan on graduating in December of 2017. I am very interested in all languages. My specific interests are in syntax and second language acquisition. I think it is very interesting to learn how languages differ from one another structurally and how people are able to learn languages despite their differences.

Application Developer

Naveed Ahmed is working as GIS Application Developer at the University of Arizona. He graduated in GIST from the University of Arizona in 2015. He also holds a Masters degree in GIS and Remote Sensing from the National University of Science and Technology Pakistan and an undergrad degree in Computer Science with a programming major. He has almost eleven years of Software development and GIS Analyst experience with different IT departments.

Support

This project would not be possible without the support of the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry and the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL). We are also grateful to Dr. Joe Salmons, Dr. David Gramling, Dr. Christopher Lukinbeal, Bart Rossmann, and the many international students who collaborated with us.