Meet the Leadership Team
Heather Linville - Past Chair
Heather Linville is Professor of TESOL at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. She holds a PhD in Language, Literacy and Culture from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Linville works to prepare all TESOL and general education pre-service teachers at UWL as advocates for ELs. Her on-going research interests include language ideologies, digital storytelling as translanguaging, and social justice for ELs. Dr. Linville has several publications, including the recently published Digital Storytelling as Translanguaging: A Practical Guide for Language Educators (with Polina Vinogradova). Dr. Linville is currently also President of WITESOL.
Polina Vinogradova - Chair
Polina Vinogradova is Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer and TESOL Program Director at American University in Washington, DC, USA. She holds a PhD in Language, Literacy and Culture from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research interests include advocacy for language learners and teachers, pedagogical uses of digital storytelling, and postmethod in teacher education. Dr. Vinogradova’s most recent book is Digital Storytelling as Translanguaging: A Practical Guide for Language Educators (with Heather Linville). She is a member of the Board of Trustees of TIRF.
Grazzia Mendoza - Chair elect
Grazzia María Mendoza Chirinos is a Researcher at UW-Madison, School of Education, Wisconsin Center for Education Research – WIDA. She is a former education Specialist at USAID Honduras where she managed and designed education development projects to ensure access, quality of education and safe learning spaces. She has been a language educator for 30 years, is a consultant and teacher trainer. She holds a M.Ed. in international education and a M.A. in TESOL. She has held a variety of positions in K-12 as well as Higher Education and trained teachers in different parts of the world for over 15 years. She has also taught abroad at master’s programs such as in Nicaragua and supported the development of master’s program curriculum in other Latin American countries. She is a US State Department Alumna recognized for project development for teachers’ professional growth projects and
Khanh-Duc Kuttig - Chair Elect-elect
2021 TESOL Teacher of the Year, Khanh-Duc Kuttig is an EFL instructor and teacher educator at the University of Siegen in Germany. She is current Chair of TESOL’S Professional Development Professional Council and was TEIS Newsletter editor from 2021 to 2024. Her research interests lie in teacher research, classroom discourse and grammar teaching. She is currently a doctoral student at the Heidelberg University of Education in Germany.
Bridget Schvarcz - Newsletter Editor
Bridget R. Schvarcz (PhD, Bar-Ilan University) is a professor of TESOL and head of the English Unit at Afeka Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering. For nearly two decades, she has been deeply engaged in TESOL teacher education, specializing in in-service teacher development. Her roles include serving as a teacher educator for the Israeli Ministry of Education, Department of Professional Development of Teaching Staff, as well as teaching in the MA TESOL program at Tel Aviv University and at Shaanan College of Education." Dr. Schvarcz is past chair of ETAI (2020–23) and currently serves as vice-chair of the association. Her research interests include formal semantics, language in areas of intractable conflict, linguistic landscape, advocacy in multilingual contexts and language awareness.
Vu Tran-Thanh - Newsletter Editor
Vu Tran-Thanh is currently a doctoral researcher at the School of Education, Durham University, UK. His doctoral project is funded by ESRC. He founded and runs a professional community called TESOL Research Collaboration Network. Vu is also a researcher whose interests include language teacher education, peacebuilding in language education, and queer inquiry.
Abdulsamad Humaidan - Community Manager
Abdulsamad Humaidan is a recipient of a 2021 TESOL Leadership Mentoring Program Award from TESOL International Association. He is a Lecturer at the Department of Linguistics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA and a Ph.D. Candidate majoring in Language, Literacies, and Culture/TESOL at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA where he also pursued an MA/TESOL as a recipient of a 2012-2014 Fulbright Foreign Student Scholarship, funded by the U.S. Department of State through the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. Abdulsamad started serving TEOSL International Association since 2018 in different roles such as a Strand Coordinator of the Content-Integrated Approaches (2022) and a reviewer of proposals for the TESOL Convention and Doctoral Forum (2018-2023), awards reviewer (2018-2022), a member of the TESOL Professional Development Professional Council (2019-2021), and a book manuscript reviewer, "Engaging Online Language Learners: A Practical Guide" published by TESOL Press (2020).