Olesya Kisselev

Dr. Olesya Kisselev is an Assistant Professor of Russian in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of South Carolina. Previously, she held positions at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as Co-Director of the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research (CALPER) and Director of the STARTALK Institute for Russian Teachers. Her research focuses on corpus linguistics, heritage language development, and evidence-based pedagogy.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics, Pennsylvania State University (2018)
• M.A. in TESOL, Portland State University (2009)
• M.A. and B.A. in Linguistics, Buryat State University (2003)

Research Interests: Corpus linguistics, instructed second language acquisition, heritage language pedagogy, syntactic complexity, bilingualism, and Russian as a heritage language.

Publications: Over 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, including edited volumes on heritage language research and pedagogy. Notable works include Advances in Research and Pedagogy of Russian as a Heritage Language (Routledge, 2024) and Rodnaya Rech' (Georgetown University Press, 2020), awarded the AATSEEL Book Prize.

Awards: Includes the University Excellence Award for Research Excellence (2023), President’s Distinguished Achievement Award (2023), and the NFMLTA/NCOLCTL Dissertation Grant (2018).

Advising & Grants: Supervised doctoral and master’s students in applied linguistics and second language acquisition. Secured grants totaling over $750,000, including the CALPER Language Resource Center (Title VI) and STARTALK programs. Mentorship includes peer-led initiatives and international collaborations.

Labs/Teams: Leads the Middlebury College Davis School’s Russian Heritage Language initiatives and collaborates with the Heritage Language Repository project. Active in CALPER’s pedagogical innovations and corpus-driven research.