Carol Severino

Carol Severino is a Professor and Director of the Writing Center at the University of Iowa. She specializes in second language writing, tutoring strategies, and multilingual education. Her roles include directing the Writing Fellows Program and teaching courses on writing pedagogy, second language acquisition, and creative writing in Spanish. She holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has received notable awards including the 2003 Collegiate Teaching Award and 2008 Fulbright Scholarship. Her research focuses on writing center practices, ESL tutoring, and translingual approaches to composition.

Education: PhD in Rhetoric/Composition, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Her research interests span writing center theory, second language writing development, and cross-cultural pedagogy. Recent work examines tutoring strategies for multilingual learners and the role of writing centers in fostering academic integration. She has published extensively in journals like Writing Center Journal and Composition Studies, with a focus on topics such as online tutoring responses, word-choice errors in ESL writing, and comparative studies of tutoring across educational levels.

Awards:

• Collegiate Teaching Award (2003)
• Fulbright Scholar, Ecuador (2008)
• English Language Specialist, US State Department (Honduras, 2010s)

Carol has delivered keynotes at international conferences, including the 2015 Latin American Writing Programs Conference (Colombia), and authored travel essays blending academic and creative writing. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Second Language Writing and actively reviews for writing studies journals.

Her advising and grants focus on collaborative research projects with colleagues like Shih-Ni Sun Prim and Deirdre Egan, exploring second language writing development through mixed-methods approaches. She oversees the University of Iowa Writing Center, a hub for peer tutoring and pedagogical innovation.