Orwin Martin is an Associate Professor of Somali Language and Literature at the University of Naples 'L'Orientale', Department of Asia, Africa and Mediterranean. He holds a First Class Honors degree in Arabic and Amharic from SOAS (1986) and a PhD in Somali Phonology (1994). Previously, he served as Senior Lecturer at SOAS (2008–2020) and held various administrative roles including Head of Department (2011–2014). His research focuses on Somali poetry's linguistic and aesthetic dimensions, including meter analysis, Arabic influences, and literary translation. He has published extensively on Somali poets like Hadraawi and Weedhsame, and collaborates with international institutions like the Poetry Translation Centre. Teaching spans Somali language at all levels, comparative literature, and translation studies. He has organized conferences, including the 2018 Somali Studies Congress in Hargeysa, and contributed to academic roles such as editorial boards for African Languages and Cultures and the Journal of Somali Studies. Awards include a certificate from Hargeisa Youth Development Association for outreach work.
Tijana Rakic is Associate Professor of International Tourism and Hospitality Management at De Montfort University, affiliated with the School of Humanities and Performing Arts. She leads the Tourism and Hospitality subject area and the BA (Hons) International Tourism and Hospitality Management program. Her research expertise spans visual research methods, heritage and identity in tourism, art and tourism, visual cultures of leisure and events, and sustainability in tourism. She employs creative methodologies including visual ethnography, narrative analysis, and multimodal research. Her recent scholarly output reflects a strong trend toward interdisciplinary and visually oriented research in tourism, with a focus on representation, identity, and methodological innovation. She has contributed significantly to advancing visual methods in tourism and leisure studies through edited volumes, journal special issues, and multimedia outputs. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute Fellow of the Higher Education Academy Tijana Rakic is an experienced PhD supervisor and welcomes research students in her areas of expertise. She chairs the Geographies of Tourism and Leisure Research Group at the Royal Geographical Society and serves as co-editor of the Routledge book series 'Current Developments in the Geographies of Leisure and Tourism'. She is also a member of the editorial boards of Tourist Studies , Tourism Geographies , International Journal of Tourism Cities , Finnish Journal of Tourism Research , and Consumer Behaviour in Tourism and Hospitality . Her creative research outputs include co-produced documentaries and a co-curated exhibition, highlighting her commitment to public engagement and knowledge dissemination beyond traditional academic formats.
Professor Karen Coats is a leading scholar in children’s and young adult literature at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, directing the Centre for Research in Children’s Literature. Her work examines how texts shape worldview through interdisciplinary lenses, integrating psychoanalysis, cognitive poetics, and continental philosophy. Education: PhD (Human Sciences, George Washington University, 1998), MPhil (Human Sciences, George Washington University, 1996), MA (English, Virginia Tech, 1996), BA (English Education, Virginia Tech, 1985) Research Foci: Multimodal discourse analysis, cultural theory, religion in literature, and the intersection of aesthetics and ethics Her research explores how children’s texts reflect and influence societal values, with emphasis on embodied cognition, material culture, and relational ethics. Recent projects include contributions to the Cambridge History of Children's Literature and Routledge Companion to Young Adult Literature . Awards include the 2024 Children’s Literature Association Edited Book Honor, 2022 Mem Fox Visiting Research Fellowship, and 2018 Children’s Literature Association Award. She mentors PhD students in areas like cognitive poetics, psychoanalysis, and YA literature. Teaching includes MPhil courses on critical approaches to children’s literature and postgraduate research methods. She co-edits the Cambridge Journal of Education and serves on advisory boards for Children’s Literature and Culture (Palgrave) and Children’s Literature, Culture and Cognition (John Benjamins).
Rosanne Carlo is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the College of Staten Island (CUNY), specializing in rhetoric and composition. She holds a PhD from the University of Arizona and has expertise in rhetorical theory, ethos, material rhetorics, and place-based writing. Her research examines how material surroundings and geographic spaces shape ethical identity. She is the Program Coordinator for the MA in English Program and co-directs the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program. Her work bridges pedagogical innovation with critical theory, emphasizing student voice and antiracist practices. Key publications include Transforming Ethos (2020) and analyses of queer identifications in Grey Gardens . She teaches across undergraduate and graduate levels, focusing on peer review and workshop-based learning. Dr. Carlo’s research interests extend to the intersection of material culture and rhetoric, with a focus on how physical spaces and objects influence character development. Her interdisciplinary approach integrates feminist theory, queer studies, and environmental humanities. Recent scholarship explores antiracist pedagogy, spatial literacies, and the emotional dimensions of literacy narratives.
John Jones is an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University specializing in Digital Media Studies, with a focus on rhetoric, professional/technical communication, and digital literacies. His academic journey includes a PhD in English from the University of Texas – Austin and an MA from the University of Tennessee – Chattanooga. Previously, he served as an associate professor at West Virginia University and a visiting assistant professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Research explores intersections of writing, computational processes, and digital culture Expertise spans digital media studies, visual rhetoric, and networked communication His work investigates the impact of wearable technologies, algorithmic systems, and network structures on knowledge creation and communication practices. Current projects examine computational ethics in digital writing and the role of digital networks in shaping rhetorical strategies. Analysis of John Jones’s publications reveals consistent engagement with: Digital media and computational rhetoric Networked communication frameworks Wearable technology implications Medical usability challenges Visual data representation Collective intelligence dynamics
Juan Llamas-Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Associate Director at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication. His research focuses on transnational media, border studies, and Latin American cultural production. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2017), an M.A. from Concordia University (2013), and a B.A. from the University of Toronto (2011). His book Border Tunnels (2023) examines media's role in shaping borderland perceptions. He co-edits [in]Transition , a peer-reviewed videographic journal, and engages in public humanities projects like The Migrant Steps Project. His work appears in journals such as Feminist Media Histories , Journal of Cinema and Media Studies , and Television & New Media . Key research interests include digital culture, global communication, and the intersection of technology with society. He teaches courses on media and migration, multimodal scholarship, and Latin American television history.
Professor Marilyn A. Walker is a leading academic in Natural Language Processing and Dialogue Systems at the University of California Santa Cruz , with significant contributions to conversational agents, personality modeling, and narrative analysis. She has held visiting roles at Google Research and leadership positions at University of Sheffield and AT&T Labs. Education : Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science (University of Pennsylvania, 1993), M.A. in Linguistics (University of Pennsylvania, 1993), M.S. in Computer Science (Stanford, 1988), B.A. in Computer and Information Science (UC Santa Cruz, 1984). Research Interests include Natural Language Processing , Conversational Agents , Dialogue Systems , and Personality Modeling . Her work bridges machine learning with linguistic theory to enhance dialogue adaptivity and expressive language generation. Scientific Awards include ACL Fellow (2016) Best Paper Awards at SIGDIAL 2016 and 2014 Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2003-2009) Grants exceed $2.5M, including NSF awards for projects like Interactive Dialog Agents for Social Language Development (2017) and Processing Opinion Sharing Dialog in Social Media (2011). She has also received corporate funding from Amazon , Fujitsu , and Hitachi .
Harry Denny serves as Professor and Director of the Writing Lab at Purdue University's Department of English, overseeing both physical consultations and the globally accessed Online Writing Lab (OWL). His leadership shapes institutional writing pedagogy through critical engagement with identity politics and social justice frameworks. His educational foundation includes a BA in American Studies from the University of Iowa, an MA in Sociology from the University of Colorado, and a PhD in Rhetoric and Communication from Temple University. This interdisciplinary background informs his critique of power structures within academic spaces. Denny's research pioneers intersections between Writing Center Studies, Queer Theory, and Social Justice, examining how gender, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS politics manifest in writing pedagogy. He maps sociocultural dynamics in one-to-one mentoring through monographs like Facing the Center while challenging heteronormative assumptions in educational spaces. His work consistently centers marginalized voices, particularly through analyses of media representations and identity disclosure in writing centers. Recent publications reveal intensified focus on decolonial approaches and translanguaging in international writing center collaborations (Colombia/USA), alongside queer possibilities in everyday mentoring practices. This trajectory extends his lifelong commitment to dismantling oppressive structures through writing center praxis, emphasizing anti-racist programming and professional labor conditions. As Writing Lab Director, Denny cultivates Purdue's writing support ecosystem where theoretical rigor meets practical application. His team operationalizes critical frameworks through tutor training, OWL content development, and community partnerships that transform writing centers into sites of social change.
Prof. Dr. Antje Wilton is a W2 Professor for English Linguistics with a Focus on Sociolinguistics at the Institute of English Philology (WE6) within the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at Freie Universität Berlin. She is a leading scholar in sociolinguistics, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), and discourse analysis, with a focus on media, sports, and forensic linguistics. Education: Magistra Artium in English, German, and Sociology (1990-1997) PhD: English and Applied Linguistics, University of Erfurt (2006) Her research spans sociolinguistics , multimodal interaction , discourse analysis , and cross-cultural communication . Recent work examines language use in sports interviews, media discourse, and forensic settings. She has co-edited volumes on organizational language and European linguistic dynamics. Key article trends include analyzing interactional strategies in sports interviews, ELF usage in media, and discourse patterns in public security debates. She teaches courses on sociolinguistics, language and space, and global English.
David Caldwell is an Associate Professor at the School of Education within UniSA Education Futures at the University of South Australia. His research focuses on transdisciplinary learning, particularly in the context of ecojustice and place-based education. He co-led the Fresh Water Literacies project, funded by UniSA's Research Themes Investment Scheme, which developed interdisciplinary curricula to address sustainability and ecological literacy in primary education. His work often bridges education, environmental science, and social semiotics. Key contributions include publications on pre-service teacher training, linguistic analysis in sports discourse, and innovative pedagogical approaches in diverse educational settings. He collaborates with regional organizations like Natural Resources Management (NRM) and emphasizes collaborative, transdisciplinary research. His recent work explores NLP applications in creativity assessment and the role of language in shaping cultural identities. David also serves as a Research Degree Supervisor, contributing to the academic development of emerging scholars in education and linguistics. His research highlights intersections between education, ecology, and cultural systems, aiming to foster socially just and scientifically literate communities.
Chris Thomas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering. His research focuses on computer vision, cross-modal retrieval, and multimodal knowledge representation, with applications in information extraction, fake news detection, and AI safety. He leads the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics and has received grants from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative and a Google Research Scholar award. Education: Ph.D. (2020) and B.S. (2013) in Computer Science, University of Pittsburgh. Research Interests: Developing robust cross-modal systems that bridge vision and language. Key areas include fine-grained visual entailment, multimodal inconsistency detection, and defending AI models against adversarial attacks. His work emphasizes practical applications like fact-checking and cybersecurity. Recent Contributions: Led the development of JourneyBench (a vision-language benchmark) and the Semantic Shield defense framework. Recent grants include cybersecurity for embodied agents and safer multimodal web agents. Awards: Google Research Scholar Award (2025), multiple Commonwealth Cyber Initiative grants (2024–2025). Advising & Grants: Advises students like Hani Alomari (ACL 2025) and collaborates with institutions like Columbia University and UCLA. His work integrates multimodal data to address real-world challenges in AI safety and information integrity. Labs/Teams: Active in Virginia Tech’s AI initiatives, focusing on interdisciplinary research at the intersection of vision, language, and security.
Meredith A. Martin is a Professor of English at Princeton University and serves as the Faculty Director of the Center for Digital Humanities (CDH), established under her leadership in 2014. She specializes in anglophone poetry, historical prosody, and the intersection of digital humanities with literary studies. Her work bridges traditional literary analysis with computational methodologies, as seen in projects like the Princeton Prosody Archive (1570–1923) and her forthcoming book Poetry’s Data (2025), which explores critical data studies in humanities contexts. Her research interests extend to Victorian literature, modernism, and interdisciplinary approaches to poetry. She holds leadership roles in multiple initiatives, including co-editing the Journal of Cultural Analytics and serving on committees for the Princeton AI Lab and Language and Intelligence Center. Martin is also affiliated with the Center for Statistics and Machine Learning and the Program in Media and Modernity. Recognized for her mentorship, she has received the Princeton University Graduate Mentoring Award (2021) and the Clio Award (2023). She advises graduate students on digital humanities, critical data studies, and comparative poetics, while overseeing collaborative projects like the Nineteenth-Century Data Collective and the Historical Poetics Reading Group. Her publications include The Rise and Fall of Meter (2012), which won multiple awards, and recent contributions to PMLA , Victorian Studies , and Paideuma . She actively promotes interdisciplinary dialogue through teaching courses on digital culture, poetry, and literature’s relationship with other disciplines.
Victoria J. Gallagher is a Distinguished University Professor of Communication at North Carolina State University (NC State), affiliated with the Department of Communication within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. She has been a faculty member since 1990 and previously served as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Academic Affairs (2008–2015). Her research focuses on rhetorical theory and criticism, communication ethics, civil rights discourse, and digital humanities. Notably, she leads the Virtual Martin Luther King Project, a major digital humanities initiative supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has also contributed to projects on gender and communication in engineering teams and authored/co-edited works such as Communicative Cities in the 21st Century . Education: Ph.D. and M.A. in Communication Studies from Northwestern University (1990 and 1989), B.A. in Communication from Michigan State University (1983). Her research interests emphasize the intersection of rhetoric, materiality, and public spaces, particularly museums, memorials, and urban parks. She explores how these sites mediate public memory and civic engagement, blending rhetorical analysis with technology and community collaboration. Her work on public art and urban communication aims to enhance public life through communicative spaces and ethical discourse. Dr. Gallagher’s funded research exceeds $450,000, including grants from the NEH and Engineering Information Foundation. Her recent articles highlight themes like virtual reality in education, sonic rhetoric in digital projects, and the role of visual imagery in social movements. She is a sought-after speaker, delivering lectures at institutions like DePaul University and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and has been featured in media outlets such as the Washington Post and WUNC/NPR’s The State of Things . Awards: Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal of Excellence (NC State’s highest honor), Robert M. Entman award, Graduate Mentorship Award, and others. As a mentor, she has advised over 70 graduate students and received multiple teaching accolades. Her leadership roles include serving as president of the Southern States Communication Association (2017–2018) and on the Rhetoric Society of America’s Career Development Taskforce. She actively engages with community organizations, including the North Carolina Freedom Park Advisory Board and the former Exploris Children’s Museum. Her projects integrate digital technologies to recover historical narratives and foster civic engagement, such as the Virtual MLK Project and analyses of urban parks as communicative spaces. She also advocates for ethical communication practices in academia and urban development.
Professor Elena Giovannoni is a full-time faculty member at the University of Birmingham , where she holds the position of Professor of Accounting and serves as Head of the Department of Accounting within the Birmingham Business School . She is an active researcher and academic leader with a strong international presence. Research Interests: Elena Giovannoni's research bridges critical and historical perspectives in accounting and organization studies. She investigates performance measurement and management control systems across diverse sectors—including the space industry, food industry, knowledge-intensive organizations, and the arts—with a focus on organizational change and sustainable development. Her work explores how calculative practices shape responses to climate change, often through a temporal lens. Methodologically, she employs case studies , archival research , and multimodal approaches . Recent Publications Trends: Her recent scholarly output (2018–2025) reveals a consistent focus on the interplay between accounting, history, and visuality. She examines accountability in cultural contexts (e.g., music, art), the materiality of organizational objects, and the future of sustainability reporting. Her editorial work on the Handbook of Historical Methods for Management underscores her leadership in advancing historical methodologies in management research. Scientific Recognition: Higher Education Academy Fellowship (2017) Editorial Board Member, Accounting Forum Editorial Board Member, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Editorial Board Member, Accounting History Editorial Board Member, Family Business Review Editorial Board Member, Organization Studies Advising and Grants: She has led multiple projects funded by international bodies, resulting in publications in top-tier journals. While no specific advisees are listed, her role as department head and PhD supervisor implies significant mentoring responsibilities. She contributes to academic knowledge dissemination through editorial leadership and collaborative research. Labs and Research Groups: While no formal lab is mentioned, her research is closely tied to the Department of Accounting and its research clusters, particularly those focused on critical accounting, sustainability, and historical methods. Her collaborative work with scholars across Europe indicates strong international research networks.
Ying Wang is an Associate Professor in English linguistics at Karlstad University since 2020, specializing in English for academic purposes, applied corpus linguistics, and second language writing. She holds a PhD from Uppsala University (2013) and has taught courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels focusing on academic writing, second language pedagogy, and corpus methodology. Her research explores rhetorical structures in disciplinary genres, evaluative language resources, and the impact of extramural English activities on L2 writing development. Notable projects include the Swedish Learner English Corpus (SLEC) initiative and analyses of predatory publishing practices in political science. She has also examined government communication strategies during the UK's COVID-19 pandemic response through corpus-assisted discourse studies. Key research contributions span formulaic language use in ELF contexts, methodological innovations in corpus linguistics, and linguistic comparisons between well-established and predatory journals. Her work bridges theoretical linguistics with practical applications in education and scholarly publishing ethics. Publications span prestigious journals like English for Specific Purposes , Text & Talk , and Journal of Second Language Writing , reflecting her interdisciplinary approach to language studies. Current projects emphasize corpus-driven research on academic communication practices and their pedagogical implications.
