Work with thought leaders and academic experts in Linguistics and Language

As a technologist, designer, and creative problem-solver, I'm passionate about teaching people to embrace new technology and explore. I am the Chair of the Computer Science department at Judson University. Before my appointment, I served as an Associate Professor in the College of Technology, Architecture and Applied Engineering at Bowling Green State University (BGSU). I teach courses in Programming, Data Structures and Algorithms, Software Design Patterns, Interactive Media, Usability, User Experience, and Augmented/Virtual Reality. I was the founding director of the Collab Lab, a hands-on, creative space for students and faculty to engage in collaborative work. My research efforts are directed in several areas: AI Supported Individualized Learning, Learner Experience Design, Technology for Online Assessment, Interactive Mobile Learning, and Computerized Sign Language Synthesis. I enjoy collaborating on projects involving cutting-edge technology and new applications.

Parvaneh Khosravi Zadeh is an Iranian linguist and academic. She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Tehran in 2006. Prior to that, she obtained her MA in Linguistics from Islamic Azad University, Tehran. She also holds a BA in English Translation from Allameh Tabatabaei University. Dr. Khosravi Zadeh has been working as an Assistant Professor at Sharif University of Technology. She has published numerous articles in prestigious linguistic journals and presented her research at various international conferences. Her areas of expertise include syntax, semantics, computational linguistics, and language acquisition. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Khosravi Zadeh is also involved in community outreach programs, where she promotes multilingualism and cultural diversity. She is passionate about promoting linguistic diversity and understanding among different cultures. Dr. Khosravi Zadeh is highly respected in the field of linguistics and has received numerous awards for her research and contributions to the field. She continues to actively research and teach in her field, and is dedicated to making a positive impact on the world through her work.

s a Professor of History at the University of Colorado and a digital humanities innovator, I specialize in medieval and early modern history, focusing on the dynamic interplay of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures. My academic journey, rooted in a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, is dedicated to exploring the rich complexities of Spain, Iberia, and the [Global Middle Ages](https://grants.uccs.edu/igma/). Yet, it is grounded in industry and government, based on my prior almost decade long career in research forecasting at the Institute for the Future and governmental management consultant and strategic planning. My current work is distinguished by my innovative use of virtual reality, MOOCs, big data, and AI in historical manuscript studies, aiming to transform our approach to teaching, research, and knowledge creation. My career and life is characterized by a global scope, delving into the histories of regions like Spain, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Germany, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Mexico, and South America. This includes prior residence in Spain, Bolivia, and South America, in addition to my native United States (TX, PA, CA, CO). This broad perspective enriches my research and teaching, allowing me to weave diverse historical narratives. A pivotal aspect of my work is my involvement with over 70,000 citizen scholars via MOOCs, university students, high school students, and the general public. This includes leading the “Immersive Global Middle Ages” project, which uses advanced digital tools to bring historical narratives to life. In December 2023, I launched a [Coursera.org Specialization titled “Personal Journeys: Identity, Motivation, and Resilience.”](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/identity-motivation-resilience) This three-course series explores the Renaissance’s cultural and intellectual legacy and modern global perspectives, focusing on self-discovery, motivation, and overcoming societal challenges. The courses offer an intellectual tapestry designed to foster resilience and growth in both personal and professional spheres. Central to my vision for future research and education is training AI as a “[collaborative AI humanist and scholar](https://urraca-ai.org/),” an endeavor that transcends academic research to pioneer new forms of human-AI collaboration. This initiative is about deepening our collective understanding of history’s longue durée through the lens of innovative technology.

Cory Young is a professor and chair of the communications department at Ithaca College. She received his PhD in intercultural communication from Bowling Green State University in 2001 and his MS in cultural studies from the University of Birmingham in 1996.

Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer works on Roman imperial literature, the history of rhetoric and philosophy, and on the reception of the western classical tradition in contemporary China.  She is the author of 5 books on the ancient novel, Neronian literature, political theatricality, and Stoic philosophy, the most recent of which is Persius: A Study in Food, Philosophy, and the Figural (Winner of the 2016 Goodwin Award of Merit).  She has also edited or co-edited 7 wide-ranging essay collections (two of them Cambridge Companions) and the “Seneca in Translation” series from the University of Chicago. Bartsch’s new translation of Vergil’s Aeneid was released from Random House in 2021; in 2022, she is publishing a monograph on the contemporary Chinese reception of ancient Greek political philosophy.  Bartsch has been a Guggenheim fellow, edits the journal KNOW, and has held visiting scholar positions in St. Andrews, Taipei, and Rome. Starting in academic year 2015, she has led a university-wide initiative to explore the historical and social contexts in which knowledge is created, legitimized, and circulated.

Serena Booth is a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in robotics from MIT in 2024 and her BS in computer science from Harvard University in 2016. Her research focuses on developing new methods for robotic control and learning.

Dr Jo Boaler is a Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University, and the co-founder of youcubed. Her PhD won the national award for educational research in the UK and her book: Experiencing School Mathematics won the ‘Outstanding Book of the Year’ award for education in Britain. She is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (Great Britain), and a former president of the International Organization for Women and Mathematics Education (IOWME). She is the recipient of a National Science Foundation ‘Early Career Award’ and the NCSM Kay Gilliland Equity Award (2014). She is the author of nine books and numerous research articles. Her latest book is Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students’ Potential through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching (2016), and is published by Wiley. She serves as an advisor to several Silicon Valley companies.

Jonathan Rosa is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, as well as a faculty affiliate in Anthropology and the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. He studies multilingualism, language ideology, and curriculum, with an emphasis on language education and structural inequality in global contexts. Dr. Rosa received his PhD in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2010, his MA in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology, also from the University of Chicago in 2006, and his BA in Linguistics and Educational Studies from Swarthmore College in 2003.

Dr Nora S Vyas is an Associate Professor in Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Kingston University. She joined Kingston University in 2012, and previously held a Senior Lecturer position at Middlesex University. Dr Vyas completed her PhD in psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), University of London in 2008. Following her PhD, she worked at the Child Psychiatry Branch, National Institutes of Health (Washington DC, USA) as a Lindemann Trust Fellow (English-Speaking Union), preceded by a Fulbright Distinguished Fellowship in 2010. Dr Vyas teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate level in child/adolescent and adult mental health, health psychology, and clinical/cognitive neuroscience. Her research focuses on using clinical, cognitive, and imaging techniques to study individuals with serious mental health problems such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. She applies these skills in other fields such as oncology and mindfulness. Her research specialism is early-onset psychosis, and she has published her work widely.

María Elena Placencia is Professor of Linguistics and Spanish.  She joined Birkbeck in 1995 and teaches in the areas of (Spanish) Pragmatics,  (Digital) Discourse Analysis as well as Spanish as a foreign language. She has performed different administrative roles, including that of Head of Department/Assistant Dean, and is currently Programme Director of various undergraduate programmes within the Department of Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics. Her current research is in the areas of variational pragmatics, with a focus on e-service encounters, and digital discourse analysis, with a focus on social media interaction. Her latest project examines the language of exclusion on Twitter in the context of interethnic interaction. Past projects have looked at a range of topics including, among others, complimenting behaviour in social media, the discourse of bargaining in e-commerce, rapport management and small talk in service encounters, (im)politeness in familial contexts, addressing behaviour and discursive racism. María Elena has published extensively on these topics.

Norman Farb, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga, where he directs the Regulatory and Affective Dynamics laboratory (www.radlab.zone). He studies the psychology of well-being, focusing on mental habits, such as how we think about ourselves and interpret our emotions. He is particularly interested in why people differ in their resilience to stress, depression, and anxiety. Prof. Farb's work currently explores online training to support wellbeing, as well as neuroimaging to understand how emotional reactions predict mental health over the lifespan.

My core interests lie in understanding how children and adolescents perceive and interpret social signals and how emerging functional specificity of the developing brain supports this process. My approach primarily involves using the face processing system as a model domain. Faces are dynamic stimuli from which we extract many different kinds of information (e.g., gender, age, emotional state, mate potential, social status, trustworthiness, intentions, “person knowledge”). All of these processes must be executed accurately and rapidly for many faces over the course of a single day, making face processing among the most taxing perceptual challenges confronted by people in their day-to-day life. Given that faces are also the pre-eminent social signal, studying developmental changes in the behavioral and brain basis of face processing in typically developing individuals and in those affected by social-emotional disorders may index a core set of developmental changes within the broader social information processing system. I employ converging methodologies, including functional (fMRI) and structural magnetic resonance, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) along with detailed behavioral paradigms in both typically developing populations and those with developmental disorders to examine development from early childhood to adulthood.