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Who is the leadership team?
The TESOL CPD PLN leadership team is comprised of volunteers.
Meet us here.
Julie Lake, Ph.D., Co-Lead
Julie received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Georgetown University. She works at Georgetown University Law Center where she assesses the needs of multilingual law students and designs and offers language programming to help this population succeed in law school. Her international teaching experience, spanning over 15 years, includes teaching English for Academic Purposes at the university level in the U.S., offering conversational English classes in Berlin, Germany, and facilitating teacher training courses in the U.S. and Cuba. Julie also has a robust research background with studies that have investigated pragmatic language processing, reading comprehension, and best practices for needs analyses. Julie is excited to contribute ideas to the TESOL International Association Career Path Development Professional Learning Network on ESL/ESP pedagogy that is rooted in social justice education and creates inclusive classroom spaces for all students.
Lynne Clark,
Co-Lead
A native of Scotland, Lynne holds an MSc in Education from the University of Edinburgh. She started teaching English in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1995. Since then, her work in English language teaching, teacher training, and program management has taken her to a number of countries across Europe and the Middle East, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the West Bank. She is now a Senior Lecturer at the University of Florida in the United States.
Weiyu Zhang,
CLIMB Manager and Technology Support
Weiyu Zhang is currently a PhD candidate in applied linguistics. Her research interests include corpus-based discourse analysis, academic writing, and writing instruction. She has many years of experience in teaching English as a foreign language at university level.
Gulchehra Ochilova,
Member-at-Large
Gulchehra Ochilova graduated with a degree in English from Tajik State Institute of Foreign Languages in 2006. In 2009 she graduated from the Tajik National University with a degree in organizational management. Between 2013 and 2020, she was a coordinator and teacher of English in the Access program sponsored by the United States government. While working as an Access coordinator and teacher, Gulchehra gained valuable skills managing a budget, planning lessons, developing a syllabus on National American holidays for all Access teachers. In addition, she organized professional conferences for all the Access teachers. This background has been valuable because she became the Coordinator of the Resource Center at the Pedagogical University in 2020. She completed ELT Leadership Management Certificate Program 2021. Also, she completed a one-month online course on Digital skills by provided English Without Borders.
Judith Ogweno, PhD.
Member-at-Large
Dr. Judith Ogweno joins us from Kenya, where she is Head of English at State House Girls High School. In addition to a PhD in Education (Administration) from Kenyatta University, she holds both an MA (Child Development) and an MEd (Psychology). Her interests include writing, mentoring young people, and networking with people from different cultures. We are very excited to have her on board.
Karen Barto, Member-at-Large
Karen Barto, PhD is a speaker, teacher trainer, writing coach, and consultant in TESOL, English medium instruction (EMI), writing for publication, curriculum design, and more. She has taught, designed, and developed curriculum in content and language, including French as a foreign language, TESOL, university pathways programs, and teacher training programs, such as an EMI course which trained over 300 professors from five countries. As a writing specialist at the University of Arizona, Dr. Barto supports academic writers of all disciplines (students and faculty) with instruction, consultation, coaching, and editing. As an English Language Specialist for the U.S. Department of State, she has trained professors in Brazil and Taiwan in English medium instruction and online education. Dr. Barto’s most recent interests center on effectively supporting neurodivergent learners and the use and impacts of artificial intelligence in education. She also remains a lifelong foreign language learner herself and is currently learning more about the Turkish language.
Damon Anderson
Member Emeritus
Liz England, PhD
Founder and Member Emeritus
You?
We are always on the lookout for volunteers who are as excited about our mission as we are.
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